Sorry for the format I'm on mobile.
This is a Payroll/HR Software company, main color green, and has a little square icon. 🙂
Dont wanna name them just in case.
I currently work for this train wreck of a company and there was a meeting the week of December 12th, 2 weeks before Christmas, stating that they're forcing only SOME of their employees to come back into the office fulltime. They stated that developers will still be able to WFH 3 days and in office 2 days while QA and others are forced to come into the office by Jan. 16th because “we're not having important conversations while WFH, but WFO will allow us to communicate better.” Like what?
They've been ignoring us when calling them out on their blatant favoritism towards devs.
They've been ignoring the fact that we're calling them out for lying to new hires when recruiters used WFH as a selling point and said it'd never change.
They're ignoring us when we ask for their so-called evidence that lead to this decision because at the end of the day we know it's all BS.
But they never showed any “evidence” that communication/productivity is down. This decision came after they received/bragged about being named Workplace of the Year in Oklahoma again.
They're basically doing this to force people to quit as a form of layoffs without calling it that to save face in the public eye we think.
People are scrambling for childcare, people with disabilities are panicking, and people who live 3+ hours away, whom were hired weeks ago, are forced to quit after recruiters and leadership lied and said that WFH was permanent.
There's going to be a mass exodus of employees so people who thought the software was bad now it's about to get entirely worse thanks to their disregard for their employees well-being. They did this after we already enrolled for benefits and people didn't sign up for a childcare FSA.
Leadership is out of touch and has even been vaguely threatening us to watch what we say in our work Teams chat, on our personal social media, and on the internal Q/A because of the Spyware they have HR using to Spy on our conversations and report anything negative we're saying about this sudden decision.
They have been opening and closing the comments in the Q/A and even editing and deleting ones they refuse to answer or don't want others to see. And if they do answer our comments they just copy and paste some generic comment saying “We care about our employees and your question and similar ones have been answered already.” When in fact they have not.
We are given outrageous deadlines by Leadership that they know we can't meet as a way to sabotage us and blame us for them having to make such a sudden decision and giving us only a MONTH notice.
The CEO, who is said to yell at and throw a fit to leadership, is said to be the out of touch individual who is wholeheartedly forcing this change because one of his rich friends issues wasn't addressed as soon as the ticket was made.
This place is crumbling, but believes that this rash decision will somehow save them?
Maybe they know this will cause a bunch of people to quit and they're ok with that?
They have a new building being made and people believe that they want us back to not only micromanage, but to get their money's worth for a building they paid for pre-pandemic. Because a building is way more important than their employees and their wellbeing.
I have to go to physical therapy 3x a week that is 45m from my home and 1.5h from the office that will cause me to miss a bunch of work when WFO and almost impossible to make up for with flex time and they'll force us to use PTO.
These people forced us to work UNPAID overtime every day of every week of week month to get their new products out and this is how they thank us. They've even said that we can't WFH even during inclement weather.
They've stopped caring about their employees, especially QA, back in 2020 when they made it dramatically harder to get our promotions, but this is the straw that will break their back back. Hopefully.
Their glass door comments from HR have been lying and saying that we have been preparing to return to WFO fulltime since they forced us to work 1 day WFO/4 days WFO when in actuality that's a lie. New hires and everyone else said the 1 day WFO/4 days WFH was a permanent decision.
It's 2022 and they want us to go back to a sense of “normal” and enjoy our apparent “award winning work culture” when that work culture is us not talking to our coworkers and sitting in a giant room full of bleak, dull, grey cubicles and feeling lifeless and miserable. There is NO office culture. There is no empathy for the well-being of the employees and their families.
It's just. “Do what I say or you can leave.”
I hope they're happy having those CRUCIAL in-person conversations because they're gonna be having a lot of them discussing how to keep the ones who stayed from quitting.
If you want other opinions look at the negative reviews on Glassdoor from employees starting from December 12th. You'll also find fake 5 star reviews that are clearly written by management to save face and give a positive outlook to the whole WFO decision.
Idk what to do. Quit quitting doesn't seem like enough and I feel like either way the company wins.
Sorry for the rant I'm just in disbelief and frustrated.
TLDR: Out of touch employer is forcing specific groups to WFO fulltime and gets mad when we call them out on their BS.