CEO causes mass quitting after requiring dozens of remote hires to relocate to cities for in-person work: 'If you want to work from home, go work somewhere else'

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    "There was a veritable flurry of resignations, including mine" Z X command C P D F O " 4 K L C V B N M A
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    CEO said "If you want to work from home, go work somewhere else", so most of my team and I did just that.
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    For a short while last year, I worked as a team lead for one of the app development teams for one of the food delivery apps. The entire team had been working from home since the start of the and had had a bunch of remote-only people join, so they were spread across several time zones, but we made it work because we thought this was how things were going to be going forward.
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    After making several billion dollars from people like us working from home and ordering delivery, around the end of summer, the entire C-suite decided that was pretty much over (spoiler: it definitely wasn't and all my people knew it) and that we would all be heading back to the office part time, gradually increasing to full time. Now, this place had pretty high turnover, so most of us had never been to any of the offices
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    since we had been hired. We had been told when we were hired that any return to work policy would be super flexible and it turned out it really wasn't. Moreover, those in cities without an office, even though they were hired as remote workers, were expected to come up with a 1-year plan about how they were going to move without any assistance or compensation to a city with an office.
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    Needless to say, my team and many others lost their collective I over this new policy. So the CEO started doing town halls with the other executives to pump the "collaboration" and "team- building" aspects of being back in the office. During one of the Q&A sessions, someone finally asked something like "I was hired remote and I don't live in a city with an office. I don't want to uproot my family. Will you make exceptions for people like me?". To which the CEO replied "Look. This is what we're d
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    What happened next was the digital equivalent of the air being let out of a balloon. The company slack channel conversations ground to a halt and became virtual ghost towns, going from spirited conversations to the bare minimum of functional courtesies.
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    The attendance at company-wide meetings fell by half and within a month, there was a veritable flurry of resignations, including mine. Prior to this debacle, we had already been paid below market rates, so this You from the CEO was just the match being lit on an already pretty sizable tank of gas.
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    By the time I left, the team that started at 8 people was down to just 2 deciding to stay. And six months later, word is they are still trying to find people and resorting to making QA people into app developers just to try to keep things going. As for me - I got a 50% pay bump for less responsibilities and work just a few hours a day instead of tons of unpaid overtime trying to put out fires at that old
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    MatthewCrawley. "If you won't let your employees work from home, someone else will." 9.1k Share
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    Just_an_Empath I don't understand why corporations won't jump on the fact that they wouldn't have to rent offices anymore. That's a lot of extra cash for their yachts. Not just renting itself but all the maintenance and IT guys. Cleaning crew, etc. ??? 7.1k Share ...
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    sgt_bad_phart · While the CEO's "work elsewhere" comment is what broke the camels back, the first mistake was setting an expectation that employees in cities without offices were to establish a 1-year relocation plan without assistance. So you hire me, tell me remote work is all good, then backpedal and tell me I have to relocate. Its your stupid policy so its your stupid responsibility to help your employees do that. Honestly, is that anything other than bait- and-switch? 6.3k Share ...
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    DarthLightside Bravo. I work remotely and actually enjoy my job, but, the day they tell me I need to return to the office is the day I make them fire me. Our team has been doing the job successfully and remotely since Mid 2020 - it's just about the illusion of control. Companies need to fully embrace remote work or face becoming obsolete. 1.9k Share
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    Hobbit_Feet45 Could you name the app? Due to certain circumstances, I'm immunosuppressed and losing disability I'm being forced to drive for one of these food service apps, I don't want to work for a one that treats it's workers badly. 1.5k Share
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    motoguzzikc I'm a software QA and you DO NOT want me coding anything 1.1k Share
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    [deleted] The WFH pandoras box has been opened and there is no closing it. Companies that want to attract the best talent will at least have to offer hybrid working. 483 Share
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    turkeyfan0 A smart CEO that went into an empty office would see this as an opportunity and size down the office so that they would pay less rent and other costs like water/electricity/mainta nce etc. An old boomer CEO that went into an empty office saw that as a threat because he didn't have a chance to boss anyone around. 182 Share
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    whanaumark If I was an investor I'd sue for destroying shareholder value, after firing the C Suite 147 Share

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