I found out because I applied for a position that I am very well qualified for and HR emailed me to advise me that I have to be in the office for the role. For the sake of clarification: at least 1/3 of this team is composed of remote employees. So there's precedence, and it's not like it requires an office presence.
I reached out to my manager, and she hadn't heard of this. She reached out to her director, and she hadn't heard of it. Apparently this policy was just dropped silently and the only reason I know is because my manager was invested in helping me get into this role.
It's messed up, there's a TON of remote employees at our company and there's been increasing pushes to get people back into the office despite a huge success with transitioning to remote work back during the pandemic. I don't live in a place where I can go into the office, so I am effectively given two options.
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Stay in my position and hope the policy changes
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Look for work in another company.
I know what choice I'll be making.