I work for a fortune 500 health tech company and I have heard a trickle down from my manager that all employees will have some minimum number of days per week in office come 2023. This is a directive from HR on high and I can't get any other info other than “we'll know more in January.”
A significant number of the company's employees have jobs that require in-person work and they were never remote, for example lab techs or truck drivers. But I work for a smaller company that was bought out and is remote by nature. Not one person has a job that requires in-person work except the office building manager and security guard. All client/customer interaction is done virtually. A small but significant number of employees live in other states and are full remote anyway. No word on how this return to office mandate will affect them.
I would estimate my sub-company has 200-300 employees and my department has about 10. When I started working here, I informed my HR person and my manager that I have a disability that may require accommodations and honestly I don't foresee an issue requesting being able to continue working remote for that reason. Additionally, I have actively been looking for new work for a few months due to general dissatisfaction.
But this mandate sucks for everyone else. I've been thinking about unionizing for a while because a different department has had (unnecessary) internally mandated in-office work for a few months now. This department is our largest and the workers are treated as more disposable even though their the lifeblood of the service we provide, but I have basically no interaction with any of them.
Any advice on how to start?