In January, AT&T (T) hopped on a controversial workplace trend that many employees across the country aren’t too fond of.
The telecom giant began requiring employees to return to working in the office five days a week after allowing them to work hybrid schedules, in which they were mandated to work only three days a week in the office.
In a statement to Business Insider last year, an AT&T spokesperson said that the company updated its return-to-office policy to help “drive collaboration and innovation” so it could better serve its customers.
Last month, AT&T CEO John Stankey raised eyebrows when he sent a stern memo to employees. The memo was in response to a companywide survey that revealed only 79% of over 9,000 AT&T employees said they felt committed and engaged with their work, falling short of previous expectations.
In the memo, Stankey doubled down on the company’s new return-to-office policy, giving workers a harsh ultimatum.
“We run a dynamic, customer-facing business, tackling large-scale, challenging initiatives,” said Stankey. “If the requirements dictated by this dynamic do not align to your personal desires, you have every right to find a career opportunity that is suitable to your aspirations and needs. That said, if a self-directed, virtual, or hybrid work schedule is essential for you to manage your career aspirations and life challenges, you will have a difficult time aligning your priorities with those of the company and the culture we aim to establish.”
He also said the company will evaluate employee behavioral data as it enforces its in-office mandate.
“We analyze patterns of behaviors from broad cohorts (aggregated data),” said Stankey. “This allows leaders to identify behaviors that are obvious outliers, supplemented with the broadest set of information available, to determine if the behavior being evaluated is consistent with our stated priorities and employment expectations.”
AT&T cuts back a harsh workplace practice
Now, it appears that AT&T is backtracking on this decision. According to a recent report from Business Insider, AT&T is scaling back its use of a system that tracks the in-office attendance of its employees because it is “driving people to the brink of frustration.”
In an internal meeting last month, AT&T Chief Marketing and Growth Officer Kellyn Kenny reportedly said that the system has sparked concerns over its accuracy.
Related: Intel quietly pulls back major employee commitment amid troubles
“We recognize that there’s things about the report that are not correct,” she said. “It is not something that I expect anybody to be looking at on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis.”
She also said that the tracking system garnered “lots of feedback” from employees who claimed they were struggling to make it to doctors’ appointments without being flagged by the system.
“I now understand the level of anxiety that this report has created,” said Kenny. “I also now understand how the fact that it is inaccurate is driving people to the brink of frustration, and it’s creating distrust.”
Related: Google quietly doubles down on a controversial workplace trend
Kenny said that while the system helped the company identify “freeloaders” who showed up to work in the office for only 30 minutes or two hours per day, it is no longer needed for that purpose.
“There were people who badged in for 10 minutes, got themselves a cup of coffee, and then left,” she said. “The report was good for identifying the people who were abusing the system. We do not need this report for that purpose anymore, because we took action on the people who were the free riders.”
AT&T is reportedly cutting its use of the system for salaried employees.
AT&T’s new in-office policy comes with a risk
AT&T’s enforcement of its new in-office mandate follows in the footsteps of other large tech giants such as Amazon, Dell, and Samsung, which all recently mandated employees to make a full return to the office.
Despite the growing popularity of return-to-office mandates, nationwide office visits are still below pre-pandemic levels.
More Labor:
- Intel quietly pulls back major employee commitment amid troubles
- Google quietly doubles down on a controversial workplace trend
- Samsung cracks down on an alarming workplace problem
According to recent data from Placer.ai, office visits across the country declined by 34.3% in August, compared to the same month in 2019. However, the report flags that this could be mainly due to “calendar differences and seasonal vacation patterns.”
Many employees across the country still prefer hybrid work schedules instead of being in the office five days a week, which is why return-to-office mandates are causing tension in corporate America.
A recent survey from FTI Consulting found that 88% of remote workers said they would be willing to work in the office for at least some portion of the week, with 33% indicating no more than two days.
“We have all seen the headlines about the return-to-office mandates by some of the nation’s largest employers, with some companies reporting that they expect all of their workers, with few exceptions, to return to the office full time in 2025,” said Josh Herrenkohl, a senior managing director at FTI Consulting, in the report.
“But our research shows that their ability to implement this mandate is not cut-and-dry, and employers risk losing talent if RTO mandates are enforced.”
