BT CEO orders staff: Back to the office or risk 'disciplinary action'
- Reference: 1663749005
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/09/21/bt_ceo_orders_staff_back/
- Source link:
In a document dispatched to affected workers, some of whom are not happy with the change of direction, BT Group CEO Philip Jansen talks of the new "smart working approach: 3 together, 2 wherever."
"We believe in being together," the boss says in the missive being distributed to many in the workforce today. "That means most of our office-based colleagues coming together for at least three days a week in the workplace, or with customers.
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"At the heart of this is our very good reason for being: we connect for good. It's in our bones, and it's what we do, every day. Working remotely, we've lost that deep connection we only get from being together – with each other or with our customers – more often."
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BT also "believes in flexibility," the boss adds, and on those days staff can opt to work at home or in a coffee shop "or back at the workplace for those that want to!"
Jansen added: "As we all emerge from the last two years and the behaviours that we created during that time, we believe that we need a change, a refresh, a greater chance to connect. We believe working any more than two days from home is not right for how we work or who we are, except in individual circumstances where our home working policy applies."
[4]Hybrid work not working? Try building an 'intraverse' to fix it, says Gartner
[5]A miserable work week spent toiling inside 'the metaverse'
[6]Back-to-office mandates won't work, says Salesforce's Benioff
[7]Does the boss want those 2 hours of your free time back? A study says fighting through crowds to office each day hurts productivity
The exact days that staff work from home are to be determined in discussions with line managers. There is some concern that more will work from home on Fridays.
Outliers who don't want to fit in with the new corporate strategy will be reminded of the Standards of Behavior policy and "that this could result in disciplinary action," Jansen says in the letter.
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BT insiders we spoke to on the condition of anonymity told us the directive covers anyone in an office-based role, which they estimated conservatively at 15,000 people or up to 25,000. It excludes field engineers, operational service, and the like. BT later confirmed the edict will affect 40,000 staffers globally.
Since the pandemic, these BT employees were home-based or assigned a local office. This is being discontinued. We are told BT's eventual plan is to operate 30 hub sites that UK staff will be mapped to. These are going to be based in city centers.
A source told us:
Within BT's business units, certain sites are only allowed for certain business units – if your business unit has chosen London, Bristol and Manchester but you're in the north-east, you need to either accept being headquartered at somewhere a long way away (taking the travel cost) or change roles/leave.
BT is also asking staff to keep a tighter control of business expenses, as is happening any other companies including Microsoft and Google, in anticipation of a more challenging business environment.
Some staff will not be happy at the imposition of rules that demand staff work in the office more regularly. One insider said:
The overall feeling is that this is quite tone-deaf at a time of high cost-of-living/transport costs and from a firm that sells collaboration and remote technology solutions. There are people who've accepted jobs over the last few years based on promises of flexibility.
The attitude toward remote working is markedly different for companies in the world of tech. [9]Workday was always keen on returning its workforce to the office , others have a mixed policy and some, like [10]Red Hat last week , say they are happy for employees to steer clear of the office forever.
We asked BT to comment, including when the "3 together, 2 wherever" policy will be introduced.
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A BT Group spokesperson added: "We've clarified that we'd like our office-based colleagues to work three days in their workspace and up to two days from home.
"Being together for the majority of the working week allows colleagues to learn from each other and prompts better collaboration and creativity – including diversity of ideas and views. Each team will find the best way of working for them." ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/12/gartner_symposium_intraverse/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/22/working_in_the_metaverse_will/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/24/back_to_office_benioff/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/26/commute_work_psychologist_study/
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YyrguAXtlgD7TZvklq-x-QAAANM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/01/18/workday_ceo_says_oracle_way/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/14/red_hat_wfh_policy/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YyrguAXtlgD7TZvklq-x-QAAANM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
BT failing to embrace remote work is an admission that their (our!) network is stuck in the 19th century. The internet will just route around us if they keep up this nonsense.
F**k you, Jansen
Any gobshite who thinks it's acceptable to set up food banks for their own employees to excuse them from paying them a proper wage can get f**ked.
I'm sure many of us would like our own "connection" with the clown in a more physical manner than just a phone call.
Solidarity to the poor bastards who have to suffer his bullshine.
Re: F**k you, Jansen
Setting up food banks for staff that's a f**king disgrace
https://bigissue.com/news/employment/bt-food-bank-community-pantry-own-staff/
What's even more egregious everyone's putting their prices up and making record profits again so tell me how are these companies hurting? they're not they'll just make less profit and that's fine its how it should, like the energy companies they can simply charge less make a little less profit
PAY YOUR BLOODY STAFF PROPERLY THEY'RE WHO MAKE YOU THIS MONEY
Taking a leaf out of IBM's book I see
"We've closed down your local office. You must turn up at your designated hub (Land's End) three times a week or be dismissed."
If you want to fire people, just have the balls to fire them instead of this farce.
How orgs differ in their approach...
Expressed the opinion that once in a while I'd like to work flexibly and *gasp* see people - need agreement in advance from the office, my manager, the CTO, the pope and the prime minister feels like.
I think it depends what your job role is. If you need to interact with a lot of people (and that can include technical roles) then it's a lot harder to do the job completely from home. Can recall many cases where a fruitless & endless email/telephone exchange on a design issue was resolved by a face-to-face - at the same time getting a better understanding of where the other parties were coming from. So I can see the advantage of hybrid working. YMMV
When all my day-to-day colleagues are at least 5 time zones away, heading into the office to attend the same Teams meetings there seems............a little bleeping pointless. FFS guys.
Yes, but that does not necessarily mean 3 days a week.
I have almost always worked for foreign companies, and since the late nineties with my boss in another country. As technology improved, we got a lot of work done with videocalls. Latterly I took to going to head office for about 1 week a month - sometimes just me and about one trip in 3 with my colleagues from other countries all coming at the same time.
Some people didn't like it but it worked quite well in my case.
Depends on the kit and home working environment you have. We have some staff who simply don't like working from home because they don't have a suitable space and others who want to but again don't have desks, tables etc to allow it to happen or space for those even if we provided them.
Happening all over
Same on my current gig. Goal is to turn back to the clock to 3 in, 2 out - which they had before the pandemic.
The cheery messages announcing this by the HR zombies make me throw up in my mouth a little. The return of the Type A personalities and their projection of "I can't stand to be alone because I might have to start thinking about my own inadequacies and the emptiness of my life - or worse do actual work" converted into "misery loves company". Return of 3 hours of commuting. Unproductive time. Hours of "let's have another pointless meeting". Unproductive time. Some middle manager phonesturbating at the top of their voice so everybody hears about their importance, going straight through even the best ANR headphones. Unproductive time.
I've pretty much decided that I will count commuting as part of my 8 hour day. Meaning I will be in the office for 5 hours - and bill the client the full day. If they decide they can do without me even in this tight job market (in my area at least), well the contract was almost up anyway.
Re: Happening all over
Commuting is the worst and wastes so much fuel its defiantly better for the environment if we don't drive to work or school.
Phonesturbating - I'm adding that to my dyslexicon, how is this for its definition "Phonesturbating - The act of a middle manager loudly having a phone call so the whole office can here all about their self-importance, in the guise of doing work"
Agreed
WFH really is a cultural problem and people need to get back to offices with some kind of frequency I believe. If they don't the rot will seep in, new starters will be left dangling, buy-in to the company will diminish.
Re: Agreed
Today I learned that Phil Jansen, CEO of BT, is on El Reg and is too much of a coward to use his own name.
I've already told you to f**k off above, don't make me say it again!
Sure. We need to waste 3 hours a day on a commute, and then waste further time listening to middle management harping on. That "connection".