Vodafone Tells Employees To Follow RTO Policy Or Lose Bonuses (theregister.com) 44
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Vodafone is warning staff in the UK to work onsite at least eight days a month or be subject to disciplinary action from April. Group UK employees were last week sent the "Hybrid Working at Vodafone" memo -- seen by The Register -- to highlight the policy and tell them to expect a year-end conversation with their line manager. "You will have read in Get Ready for Year-End Conversations and a Hybrid Working Reminder [documents] that your line manager may discuss hybrid working with you as part of your year-end conversation. "We therefore want to remind everyone of the Group UK Hybrid Working policy. It's essential that all employees adhere to the expectation of being in the office 2-3 times a week, or at least eight days a month," it states.
"Employees who are not fully compliant with our hybrid working policy by the end of Q1 may be subject to disciplinary action in line with policy. Continued non-compliance with attendance expectations could result in a final written warning, which would mean individuals are not meeting the minimum performance standards and therefore would not be eligible for a bonus in 2026 or in subsequent years in which a final warning is given." Line managers can ask team members to attend the office on a specific day if reasonable notice is given and are advised to set team days to "help teach members to form a pattern." Vodafone has operated a hybrid work policy since 2021 "following the pandemic." "Vodafone's hybrid working policy has been in place since 2021, with all employees expected to be in the office 2-3 times a week, or at least eight days a month," said the company in a statement. "This allows flexibility for staff, and for them to benefit from in-office collaboration."
"Employees who are not fully compliant with our hybrid working policy by the end of Q1 may be subject to disciplinary action in line with policy. Continued non-compliance with attendance expectations could result in a final written warning, which would mean individuals are not meeting the minimum performance standards and therefore would not be eligible for a bonus in 2026 or in subsequent years in which a final warning is given." Line managers can ask team members to attend the office on a specific day if reasonable notice is given and are advised to set team days to "help teach members to form a pattern." Vodafone has operated a hybrid work policy since 2021 "following the pandemic." "Vodafone's hybrid working policy has been in place since 2021, with all employees expected to be in the office 2-3 times a week, or at least eight days a month," said the company in a statement. "This allows flexibility for staff, and for them to benefit from in-office collaboration."
Your Terms Are Acceptable (Score:1)
I would gladly give up bonuses if the choice was return to office or working full time remote.
Who cares about the review, I'd just do work otherwise and leave it to the manager to decide of how to square the circle of "does amazing work but just doesn't come into office".
"Somehow magically is able to work hours a day longer than team members who commute" is another good one.
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Unfortunately, people tend to favor their own intuitions over evidence when it comes to making important decisions. Not all people, of course, but most.
Not the employee's productivity. (Score:5, Interesting)
Working from home has been shown to be at worst no less productive than working in the office. Many studies show it is more productive, particularly if the work has real metrics.
However, with employees out of the office, MANAGERS lose their ability to demonstrate productivity.
They want you back in the office not to improve your productivity but instead to demonstrate their productivity. If most employees are out of the office, it becomes harder for a manager to:
1) Hold meetings.
2)Look at you and see you are at your computer and not watching youtube on it.
3) Compliment you on their schedule, in person (no email record)
4) Berate you on their schedule, in person (no email record)
5) Advise you
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Most managers I’ve seen do nothing but have zoom meetings and make projections on excel sheets. Somehow they manage to stretch that into 40 hours.
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Just because you don't see it, you can't assume it's not happening. I was front line for 15 years, management for 15. Most of what I did as a manager was not visible to the front line.
Try sitting in front of a budget panel defending your request for funding each year, competing with other groups who collectively want three times the funding available. Building that business case from the ground up takes time, structure, and careful preparation. The front line just hears you got work to do. Or, as another ca
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I would agree with you.
Most managers have jobs where it is possible to do good work and help the company make money, otherwise they would all be fired long ago.
But just as their are good and bad employees, there are also good and bad managers.
In my opinion, a good manager can make up for 2 or 3 bad managers, just by doing a phenomenal job.
Re: Not the employee's productivity. (Score:2)
"That's a nice summary of uninformed, dismissive, and polarized views that folks who don't understand management levy against it."
It's a great list of informed and observed bullshit behaviors of bad managers.
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That's a nice summary of uninformed, dismissive, and polarized views that folks who don't understand organized labor levy against it.
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I've long said my group could do w/out a direct manager/babysitter because frankly we don't need micro-management and we're adults.
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TL;DW version is... money, of course.
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5) Advise you
For some managers, that actually means micromanaging the staff.
Yes, those managers HATES it when everyone is working remotely, they cannot micromanage the way they could when everybody were nearby.
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Working from home has been shown to be at worst no less productive than working in the office. Many studies show it is more productive, particularly if the work has real metrics.
It seems obvious to me that some workers are as or more productive working at home and some are not. I wouldn't believe any study that that claims one characterization for all workers.
So, bosses have four choices: (1) Enforce some form of RTO for all workers, (2) allow WFH for all workers, (3) allow flex schedules for all workers, or (4) enforce RTO for only the less productive workers. The last option would be the best, as it allows all workers who are productive at home to WFH. However, bosses don't h
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The last option would be the best, as it allows all workers who are productive at home to WFH. However, bosses don't have a precise ability to identify less productive workers.
Nope. HR takes issue with preferential treatment. So, no. If RTO is required because human beings suck at time management - it's required for ALL.
Also, the assertion that everyone is magically more productive at home is provably BS. Very few have the necessary skills required to actually be productive when at home. Mostly they game, take pets for long walks, do fun acitvities with the kids...
I treat anyone arguing against RTO as a wastrel defending their paid vacation time at home.
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Nope. HR takes issue with preferential treatment. So, no. If RTO is required because human beings suck at time management - it's required for ALL.
If that were true then companies wouldn't be able to offer higher salaries and bonuses to their top performers, which is obviously not the case. HR doesn't give a damn about preferential treatment unless it's based on a protected characteristic like race or gender.
Thats sooo easy (Score:2, Troll)
I'd drop a bonus anyday.
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You're not a team player (Score:2)
If you stop getting bonuses then management won't be able to waive a carrot in front of you for every little concession they demand. You can't be a "team player" with that kind of attitude!
So short-sighted (Score:5, Insightful)
I happen to be a Senior Director and I'm constantly pushing back on my VP about turning the screws on the return to work thing.
There are undoubtedly some tasks that are better done in person, but a "one-size-fits-all" approach is just stupid.
In my own case, I got a lot MORE done when I was remote, because I mostly used my saved commute time to work. I also got more family time.
I was fitter, happier, and more productive.
No we are making people upset and lowering productivity. Managing is hard, but managing by seeing who is sitting in their chair is awful. If you can't manage people on their objectives, then we have no business being a manager.
Re:So short-sighted (Score:5, Interesting)
Good manager enables his employees to be more productive and provides whatever support is needed for them to do their job. I had a few good and a few bad managers over the span of my career and there is definitely a difference. Good manager will gather good team around him/her and will be successful together with the team. Bad manager will gain a reputation and people will leave them for other managers or other companies.
I am not a manager nor I would want to be one, but I would not want to work for a bad manager.
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Sounds like you've never had a good manager. I've been very fortunate in that regard. Sure, (good) managers don't do the kind of work *you* do but what they *do* do is: they are a shield between you and every other random thing that people want to send your way. They make sure that things come down the proper channels, they listen to you, the expert, and take that advice back up to the higher-ups who *really* don't understand how the business actually works. They make the ridiculous powerpoint presentations
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Your salary covers the cost of any commute. Your salary was not reduced when WFH so why should there be an increase for RTO? Not to mention all the money you saved these past years by not having to go into the office every day. Here, they are only asking for 8 days a month, or twice a week. Hardly a travesty.
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Because there is more opportunity to work from home now, so if they want to retain staff they need to pay more to cover the commute.
They at least need to pay enough for you to live within reasonable commuting distance. I see companies with offices in expensive locations advertising the same jobs, year after year, because what they pay isn't enough to live anywhere near there.
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Or...
Your salary was not increased when WFH
For many employees, WFH was more difficult than being in the office (depending on circumstances in the home).
Employees had no choice: WFH or else.
Businesses survived only because employees did WFH
Hey, it's their company (Score:2)
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True, and their company has claimed to be connecting people (https://www.vodafone.com/news/empowering-people/vodafones-vision-of-an-everyoneconnected-future). It would seem to me that their product is failing at that task if they feel the need to have all their people in a handful of offices instead of spread about.
I notice they're moving their branding towards "The future is exciting. Ready?". Again, if they're saying the future is squeezing on cramped trains to sit in a dull cubicle farm, then no, it's no
Not egregious. (Score:2)
The more stringent the metrics, the more the work is operational, transactional, repeatable, and... stagnant, If what you're trying to find isn't at the end of a perfectly linear, predictable path, you can't metric your way to it.
Greatness is found in collaboration, and in my experience is best attained with some in person arguing and challenging. Dependable mediocrity can be maintained without it.
I think this company is striking a reasonable balance.
Attendance != performance (Score:1)
Good luck finding a European labour court that will agree that an employee is non-performant just because they happen to WFH.
Essentially, this is a PIP (Score:2)
In the US, if you're placed on a PIP, you don't get bonuses and your stock option awards are suspended. Being put on a PIP usually means you're not going to remain on the payroll for very long.
Since this is Vodaphone, the superior EU and UK employment laws may afford better protection from being terminated unjustly, but you can certainly still be terminated for poor performance. But if you are terminated due to performance, the outcome won't be the same as in the USA. In some states (but not all) terminatio
bonuses of how much? (Score:2)
I know this is about Vodafone and therefore not in the septic tank but anyway... I have an average US commute and if I had to work in office every day it would cost me about 2500 per year in fuel alone...
Another quiet layoff (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh look, another quiet layoff.
After over a year of RTO mandates followed by layoffs, is there still any doubt that these mandates are implemented mainly for the purpose of getting people to quit? And when not enough people quit, layoff will follow even though the remaining were those who went back to the office.
Maintaining office space costs money, when there are roles that can work remotely effectively, it made zero sense for management to implement across the board RTO policy. This is no different than mandating your sales people to be in office at least 8 hours a day, it shows a callous disregard for both how the job was done and how the employees feel.
RTO mandate is a big sign saying "It's time to find a job elsewhere!".
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It's weird that companies are so desperate to keep the layoffs stealthy that they settle for a method that makes it easiest for their best, or at least most connected, employees to leave. Anyone facing an RTO mandate who has headhunters blowing up their inbox is immediately going to check those headhunter emails for remote jobs, and facing the added costs of commuting they won't even have to pay better.
Why do the governments not care? (Score:3)
Governments should - as far as I can see - be pushing WFH like crazy and adapt incentives to it!
I simply don't understand why they are not
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Unfortunately it's not that simple, at least if you're not just looking at the big picture. While WFH is a huge immediate win for workers' discretionary income, quality of life, and environmental impact, in high-density urban areas that workers used to commute to, it causes decreased foot traffic and lunch-hour spending. This causes nearby businesses to complain and causes the politicians they complain to (especially at the municipal level) to fear that their downtown will become a ghost town, doubly so if