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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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Mar 20, 2024 8:00 AM EDT

No boss should be remotely surprised when employees expect that the conditions of their contracts will be honored. Changing the circumstances of someone's employment contract should function similarly to negotiations during the hiring process. Everything must be a two-way street and the solution must satisfy both parties. This is why it's particularly shocking in this day and age to see a CEO so out-of-touch when he forced entire teams of fully remote employees to relocate across the country for in-person office work. Not only was this change sudden and without warning but also he simply expected everyone to come aboard. It's not surprising that he was met with resistance; what is surprising is that the CEO was surprised by the resistance.

This thread was posted to Reddit by u/Icerman, the team lead for an app developer who was hired with the understanding that his whole team would remain fully remote. After the sudden change to the rules and the CEO's subsequently dreadful town hall, the original poster's team of eight people quickly narrowed itself down to two people. Keep scrolling below for the full story and the ensuing fallout. For more stories like this, here is one about an employee's snack revenge on his coworkers.

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  • 01
    "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
    via Chris Montgomery
  • 02
    CEO said "If you want to work from home, go work somewhere else", so most of my team and I did just that.
    via u/Icerman
  • 03
    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.
    via u/Icerman
  • 04
    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
    via u/Icerman
  • 05
    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.
    via u/Icerman
  • 06
    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
    via u/Icerman
  • 07
    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.
    via u/Icerman
  • 08
    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.
    via u/Icerman
  • 09
    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
    via u/Icerman
  • 10
    MatthewCrawley. "If you won't let your employees work from home, someone else will." 9.1k Share
    via u/Icerman
  • 11
    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 ...
    via u/Icerman
  • 12
    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 ...
    via u/Icerman
  • 13
    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
    via u/Icerman
  • 14
    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
    via u/Icerman
  • 15
    motoguzzikc I'm a software QA and you DO NOT want me coding anything 1.1k Share
    via u/Icerman
  • 16
    [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
    via u/Icerman
  • 17
    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
    via u/Icerman
  • 18
    whanaumark If I was an investor I'd sue for destroying shareholder value, after firing the C Suite 147 Share
    via u/Icerman

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