Has anyone here been fired for ignoring in-office mandates?<p>Most of the banks in Toronto are forcing staff back into the office a set minimum number of days per week, ranging from 2-4. None are mandating 5 days/week, as far as I know.<p>I have heard that full compliance is low but don't have any data to back it up.
Not me, but I've had a direct peer fired because they did not comply. They received recurring monthly notices for about 6 months and were then terminated (no severance or other allowances were given that are typically given to performance-based termination).<p>This peer was typically evaluated as a high performer during performance reviews, but was denied for their request to remain remote, and they decided to ignore the order and accept the consequences.<p>The organization is also actively monitoring and blocking bonuses and promos for those who are not fully ignoring the mandate but are not meeting the full expectation.<p>USA based financial institution.
I had an in office mandate about two years ago. I ignored it, I’m still employed in the same org.<p>It was quite odd. My boss told me to come into the office. I explained how I didn’t want to do that because of personal and professional reasons, I think a pretty rational case. They gave a vague reason “leadership wants it.” I was friends with their boss so I asked the superboss and they said they don’t care.<p>I never came in. My boss never said anything. Not sure if they didn’t notice. It’s quite possible since I rarely interacted with anyone in person even when in the office. After six months of that, I moved to a new position in my org that is remote friendly.<p>I think this worked because I’m a “digital worker” who basically just shells into stuff and write code and attends meetings. I don’t actually do anything in person.
This can totally happen, though in this case it’s a bit of a collective action problem. Let’s say “full compliance is low” means 80% of people aren’t coming into the office. The banks likely can’t fire 80% of their employees over something like this, so they won’t. But then anyone who isn’t coming in and is bragging about it on Slack probably will get fired since letting go of a few conspicuous people to make an example is totally affordable. After that some people may decide it’s not worth the risk and decide to come back to the office. And then once the number of people failing to comply goes below some arbitrary unknown threshold, they may decide that they can afford to layoff the remaining stay-at-home folks, at which point if you haven’t decided to come back in yet, you could be fired.<p>I tried to use conditional tense a lot in there because none of this is set in stone. If management only kind of wants people in-office and has higher priorities, maybe y’all will get away with it. But if they’re really dead set on it and you don’t have a union fighting for you, expect to either return to the office or get fired eventually.
My previous company has linked bonuses to it (i.e. you don't get full bonus unless you're in 3 days a week), but all that's done is make people look for new jobs - from what I've heard they're bleeding talent which even in this job market has better options.
Awhile back I was on project A that got absorbed by the management of project B. Project b mandated that all engineers wore pagers. A guy on project A decided he didn't want to. The job he was hired for didn't require it when he was hired, and if the pager went off, he'd just have to call someone on project B anyway.<p>He said no. Got fired.
Banks in the US are _very_ insistent on the return to office mandate. Noncompliance would be met with termination.<p>Rest assured their goal is full return to office despite the current "hybrid" model they are pushing, and you are not important enough to them to keep your job while being civilly disobedient.
I'm in Europe and my colleagues who haven't managed to get fully remote yet and still got stuck in hybrid jobs generally do what they can to extend their WFH time. Since the most common arrangement is 3:2, they often reverse it and sometimes their bosses don't even notice as they tend to WFH more than their reports.
We fired staff members for not coming in. This is one of those things where if everyone refuses then what are they going to do? Fire them all?<p>Long term, I'd be wary though.
I wasn't, I left before they had the chance. I was told it wasn't going to be enforced by several leaders after I threatened to quit.<p>For context - my original remote status was a bit of happenstance through a transfer. It started before COVID but got looped up in the big RTO push.<p>The critical mistake? My 'new' team didn't write down their not-pandemic-related-WFH-ness, apparently. The clowns in charge decided our disparate team had a magical worldwide office to return to.<p>Not satisfied in the uncertainty with the <i>"no punishments expected"</i> promise... I found a whole new job. Something <i>explicitly</i> remote.<p>The main thing I want to express/leave is this: consider whatever your circumstance right now a coin toss. There will be more.
I once ignored a shirt and tie mandate and nothing happened besides some stern words from my manager after I told I wasn't going to comply. We worked in a basement and never saw customers, the mandate was just a power move on his part.
I'm in the EU and my employer is currently taking action against me for disregarding the 3 day a week RTO. Currently we're in negotiating phase. It can end either in dismissal or, hopefully, a severance package that would take into account my status as a top performer of my cohort. I wrote them a manifesto why I think they're misguided, but of course that nobody that actually makes decision was moved, or, perhaps even read it.
Any ideas on what employees can do if it turns out that a company cannot support their in-office mandate?<p>My gf's company (EU, with a US parent company) have started mandating in-office days for new contracts. But this is <i>after</i> moving to a smaller, more remote (and thus much-much cheaper) office space, which is plainly inadequate to accommodate every employee.<p>Older contracts are off the hook for now, but there are worries for when they try to apply the mandate to everyone.
It seems in the US people don't go to the office as much as in Europe (like, US offices are a ghost town compared to EU offices)<p>Any idea why that is? My guess is it's related to the commute (no good public transport in the US, ...), but if not, what's so much worse about US offices than EU offices that people prefer working isolated from home rather than have a more social life among coworkers? (I'm an introvert yet was still happy when offices reopened after covid and people were coming in. Having a coffee with a small group is great for introverts imho!)<p>People have about as much families/kids/... in EU as US so that's not related to it I think