• AT&T began implementing its staggered five-day return-to-office mandate on Monday.
• Workers told BI that limited available desks and elevators at some locations complicated their office return.
• As more workers are slated to arrive in phases, projects to add capacity are underway.

The first wave of AT&T's five-day return-to-office mandate started on Monday. Conversations with half a dozen AT&T workers across the country this week indicate it hasn't been off to a smooth start.

At the Dallas-based telecom giant's Atlanta offices, AT&T employees told Business Insider that a lack of enough open desks, parking lots that quickly filled up, and a limited number of elevators is complicating the company's plan to phase out hybrid work.

Internal documents obtained by BI suggest that AT&T is aware that its RTO mandate is asking more people to work on-site than the number of workstations it has at some of its offices.

An internal FAQ that was updated last week said that employees in at least one division should expect workstations for 70-80% of those who are assigned to a particular location.

"As a reminder, employees should not leave personal items, make signage, or add name plates on desks," the document said. "These items will be removed."

A spokesperson for AT&T did not provide immediate comment when contacted by Business Insider.

The document follows a memo last month from CTO Jeremy Legg sent to employees that said his AT&T Technology Services division "will not offer one-for-one seating per employee" under the new RTO rules.

One employee at the Atlanta offices told BI on Monday that he arrived before 7 a.m. to ensure he got a workspace.

Another Atlanta worker said he arrived before 6 a.m. and that the available desks he saw had been filled by employees by 9 a.m., at which point some employees sat in the dining area or around conference tables.

"I actually enjoyed coming to the office and even came four to five days a week," the employee said. He said that he felt the working environment "has deteriorated" as more employees returned to the office since last year's three-days-in-office requirement.

The worker said AT&T employees have already been competing for space and sometimes speaking over one another while conducting simultaneous Microsoft Teams meetings. The elimination of hybrid work is heightening those challenges, the employee added.

The two Atlanta workers, as well as employees at other offices, told BI that finding open parking in a timely manner has been a challenge for themselves and for colleagues, especially at offices that have been converted from less-dense cubicle setups to more tightly packed floor plans.

In communications sent to employees, AT&T has said it will continue to monitor workspace capacity and usage and will make adjustments accordingly. Legg's memo said that the company anticipates some percentage of workers to be out of the office each week due to sick days, work travel, vacation, or other reasons.

Workers in Atlanta also reported seeing signs in front of the office's elevators (which they said have seen increasingly long wait times) with motivational quotes recommending they use nearby stairs instead.

Workers said the signs included phrases like "There is no elevator to the top of the corporate ladder," and "There will be challenges, but each step you take brings you closer to who you're meant to be. Take the stairs." It wasn't clear exactly when the signs were placed, but the Atlanta employees said the signs were gone by Tuesday morning.

One of the Atlanta employees told BI that an additional elevator is planned to be installed at the location.

Meanwhile, more workers are slated to arrive this year under subsequent phases of the company's five-day RTO mandate. AT&T previously said different divisions are setting their own schedules according to their business needs.

AT&T's move away from hybrid work follows similar moves from Amazon, Dell, and others that are requiring workers to be in the office for the entire workweek.

"We believe there is great value in having people connecting, collaborating, and innovating together in an office setting," said one AT&T memo, which was distributed after the initial return-to-office mandate was announced in 2023. "Consolidating our work locations will also help us reduce costs and simplify things for our employees and our customers."

Nearly all of the dozen workers BI has spoken to in recent weeks have said they feel that the new rules may be an attempt to reduce its US workforce.

"This is not about collaboration," one of the Atlanta workers said. "If they can cut costs and have people leave because they're uncomfortable, that's the sweet spot."

If you are an AT&T employee who wants to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out.

• After five years of marriage, my husband and I got stuck going on the same boring dates.
• We needed a change, so I proposed "adrenaline dates" to get our hearts racing and bond us together.
• Each adventurous date has been more exciting than the last, and they've brought us closer.

After five years of marriage, my husband and I were in danger of calcifying into the "dining dead" — couples who have nothing to say to each other over meals, dutifully chewing their food in dreary silence.

Like many long-term couples, we'd gotten stuck in a cycle of boring dates: always a movie and dinner, where we'd talk about our kid or finances.

We adore each other, but at some point, it became easier to go to hit up the same theater and local diner or taco truck than to look for an exciting new spot or activity.

However, familiar routines should be for the daily grind of work and parenting. For the one I vowed to spend my life with, I wanted more.

Determined to add more excitement to our date nights, I found myself reading up on adrenaline — and how high levels of it have been linked to increased attraction and arousal.

It seemed worth a shot to try to harness the rush and use it feel closer and more attracted to one another. So, I started planning "adrenaline dates" that might do just that.

We've had a blast prioritizing adrenaline rushes on our date nights

To start, we booked an escape room. Neither of us had ever done one, and my heart raced in fear of the unknown as we stepped into the dark, enclosed space.

Although my brain knew we weren't actually trapped in a crisis situation, my body was rushing with adrenaline as we escaped from chains and deciphered clues as the clock counted down.

For our next dates, we raced around in laser tag, punched side-by-side in virtual-reality boxing, and hit the climbing gym to out-boulder one another.

The dates were fun and brought us closer, which only inspired us to push the envelope further. Later, we tried axe-throwing and had a blast hurling the tools at a wood marker, splintering it as we went.

We visited a rage room, where we donned helmets and protective suits, grabbed baseball bats and crowbars, and started to shatter bottles and dismantle furniture.

I was timid at first, hitting just one item at a time. By the end, I was smashing a dozen bottles to smithereens at once with the swoop of a baseball bat.

After all the time we spend being careful, tiptoeing around coworkers, friends, neighbors and parents, I love that we got to connect by feeling animalistic and reckless together.

As I flung heavy axes and smashed bottles, I could feel stress flowing out of my body and dissipating into the air. After these intense dates, I've never felt so relieved to fall into my partner's arms.

Our dates continue to bring us closer together

Throughout these experiences, we felt joy and connection while creating special memories, which felt hard to do during basic dinner dates.

Plus, "adrenaline dates" can range in activity level and cost, from playing suspenseful video games to riding rollercoasters.

Many of our favorites have felt especially wild and destructive. Lately, we've been rock climbing challenging routes in Joshua Tree, bonding over the rush of fear and adrenaline while enjoying beautiful views.

We even try to schedule these dates every month on the full moon, so we can later kiss under the moonlight — it feels like magic and keeps us out even longer.

It feels like tech workers have caught very few breaks over the past several years, between ongoing mass layoffs, stagnating wages amid inflation, AI supposedly coming for jobs, and unpopular orders to return to office that, for many, threaten to disrupt work-life balance.

But in 2024, a potentially critical mass of tech workers seemed to reach a breaking point. As labor rights groups advocating for tech workers told Ars, these workers are banding together in sustained strong numbers and are either winning or appear tantalizingly close to winning better worker conditions at major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

In February, the industry-wide Tech Workers Coalition (TWC) noted that "the tech workers movement is far more expansive and impactful" than even labor rights advocates realized, noting that unionized tech workers have gone beyond early stories about Googlers marching in the streets and now "make the headlines on a daily basis."

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• Nearly 75% of executives said in a survey they'd mandate at least three days a week in the office in 2025.
• Many companies cite collaboration, productivity, and culture as reasons for office return.
• RTO mandates could lead to higher turnover, especially among women and skilled workers.

Many bosses with an RTO policy in place plan to ask employees to spend more time in the office next year.

In a recent survey from Resume.org, nearly three-quarters of execs at companies that have already implemented some form of an RTO policy said they would require workers to be in the office at least three days a week by the end of 2025.

The November survey of 900 business leaders underscores a general trend of bosses demanding to see more heads bobbing atop cubicles in the new year.

Some of the companies demanding more face time instead of FaceTime are big-name employers like Amazon, AT&T, and Starbucks.

In the Resume.org survey, 73% of respondents whose companies already have an RTO rule said they would require workers to report to the office at least three times a week by the end of 2025. Almost one in three expect to require workers to come in every workday, while only 2% expect to allow workers to show up once a week or less.

While many employers calling workers back to the office point to productivity — as respondents did in the Resume.org survey — being in person doesn't necessarily boost how much gets done, said Nicole Kyle, who researches the future of work.

She told Business Insider that many studies suggest productivity and performance don't drastically change when workers aren't side-by-side. Instead, such metrics can remain steady or even increase if an organization allows more remote or hybrid work, Kyle, the cofounder of CMP Research, said.

Various studies have come to conflicting conclusions on how remote, hybrid, or fully in-office work impacts productivity — and one complicating factor could be the matter of how best to define or measure productivity.

Bosses might not care if you quit

Employees, in some cases, have pushed back — often unsuccessfully — against RTO mandates. Yet many business leaders don't regard these mandates as asking too much of the people they're paying to do a job.

In the survey, about one-third of bosses said they were worried workers would quit because of the RTO policies, while 49% said they weren't very concerned or weren't concerned at all. Of those surveyed, 18% were uncertain.

About seven in 10 execs said the reason to have workers back IRL is to promote collaboration and teamwork. Nearly six in 10 said the move was aimed at improving communication. And about half pointed to a desire to strengthen the organization's culture and raise productivity.

Lisa Walker, a managing partner at the executive search firm DHR Global, told BI that some employers can benefit from bringing back workers because it allows more experienced people to mentor newer workers. She said that's often harder to do when workers aren't in person.

"To get the junior people into the office, you need to get the senior people back to the office," she said.

In the Resume.org survey, four in 10 respondents said they wanted to use office space that might otherwise lie fallow.

It's understandable that bosses wouldn't want to let sometimes pricey real estate go unused, though strict in-office rules can also have a cost.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburg and other academic institutions recently reported that S&P 500 companies that require workers to return to the office subsequently experience "abnormally high" rates of workers quitting and have a harder time filling open roles.

The researchers found that those leaving are often female, more senior, or more skilled. The findings are based on the employment histories of more than 3 million tech and finance workers, as reported on LinkedIn.

"The return-to-office mandates are having pretty specific and negative impacts and causing brain drain from companies," said Kyle, who wasn't involved in the research.

Perhaps with those types of concerns in mind, some leaders have said they likely would only tighten the RTO screws if productivity suffered. Among them, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in October that the company wouldn't require workers to come to the office as long as they remained on task when working from home.

Do you have something to share about your employer's RTO plan, something else at work, or in your job search? Business Insider would like to hear from you. Email our workplace team from a nonwork device at [email protected] with your story, or ask for one of our reporter's Signal numbers.

Some workers won't be returning until May 2025, according to Bloomberg News.

• AT&T is requiring many office employees to work on-site a full five days a week starting in January.
• The telecom giant previously accommodated a hybrid schedule in its return-to-office push.
• The news comes as Amazon has delayed some RTO plans due to capacity issues.

AT&T's return-to-office mandate is set to get more strict in the new year.

The Dallas-based telecom giant confirmed to Business Insider that it is requiring all office employees to work on-site five days a week starting in January. The change follows about a year of AT&T accommodating a hybrid schedule in its widely publicized office push.

In the summer of 2023, CEO John Stankey said workers would be required to report at least three days a week to one of nine corporate hubs: Dallas; Atlanta; Los Angeles; San Ramon, CA; Seattle; St. Louis; Washington; Middletown, NJ; and Bedminster, NJ. The company previously supported more than 300 offices across the US.

Thousands of affected employees faced the choice of relocating or finding a new job, with some 18,000 management employees opting to return to one of the hubs, according to AT&T's proxy statement this year.

Now, some workers who may have gotten used to hybrid schedules will soon be required to log eight hours a day, five days a week at the office.

"The majority of our employees and leaders never stopped working on location for the full work week — including during the pandemic," a company spokesperson told Business Insider.

In multiple social media posts, Reddit users on the AT&T subreddit voiced concerns about whether the offices have enough capacity for employees.

AT&T told BI it is updating its facilities amid the policy change.

"As we continue to evolve our model, we are enhancing our facilities and workspaces, adapting our benefits programs, and incorporating best practices to ensure our employees are best equipped to serve our customers," the spokesperson said.

This week, BI reported that Amazon was delaying its 5-days-in-office mandate for some employees due to workspace shortages at some locations. While most locations are on track to be ready on January 2, internal documents indicated some employees will be delayed until as late as May.

"We continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant," Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told employees in a September memo announcing that employees were expected to be in the office every day of the week.

AT&T is also expanding its footprint in Atlanta, where the company signed a lease earlier this year on two office buildings it had previously vacated, CoStar reported.

Shares of AT&T are up roughly 40% in 2024 so far, outperforming the S&P 500's 27% return in the period. The telecom giant reported mixed third-quarter results in October, adding more new wireless subscribers than Wall Street expected but coming up slightly short for overall revenue as the land-line business declines.

The RTO push comes as some big-company CEOs say they're frustrated with hybrid work setups. Many job seekers have also found that it's getting harder to find a remote job or one that's hybrid.

At the same time, some employers appear to have settled into a tentative truce over how often workers are required to show up at the office.

In an October survey of nearly 7,500 organizations globally, the recruiting company Korn Ferry found that the share of employers requiring workers to report to the office five days a week had dropped to 43% from 89% before the pandemic ushered in a global experiment in remote work.

If you are an AT&T worker who wants to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750. Responses will be kept confidential, and Business Insider strongly recommends using a personal email and a non-work device when reaching out

• Some US workers are embracing AI, seeing it as a career booster.
• A survey from KPMG US found that half of workers believe automation has helped them at work.
• Training is the primary lever employers have for retaining workers, a KPMG exec told BI.

Some US workers appear to be warming up to artificial intelligence.

In a KPMG US survey, half of respondents said automation — including AI — has boosted their professional abilities. Just shy of half said that automation would bring new career opportunities.

By comparison, 28% of workers said they might lose their jobs to automation, which has been widely touted as a concern. In a survey of managers last year, KPMG found greater unease about the possible toll of technological gains.

The latest findings are notable because they appear to indicate that workers are becoming more conversant with tech like AI — and not just ignoring it or fearing that it will replace them, John Doel, a principal in the KPMG US human capital advisory practice, told Business Insider.

"As adoption increases, people are getting more comfortable with the impact that's going to have on their careers," he said.

About seven in 10 surveyed said they use "automation tools" at least weekly, and one in three said they use them daily.

Doel said the rates at which workers are adopting the technology suggest that many are chipping away at a "fear factor" that might have existed around AI.

KPMG US surveyed more than 1,800 US workers at companies with more than 5,000 employees. About six in 10 of the respondents were managers.

Building skills to build their career

Some eight in 10 respondents agreed with the idea that building skills is important for their career. And about one in four workers said chances to learn are one reason they're staying in their jobs. Meanwhile, 22% said having the opportunity to learn and build their skills made them consider different roles.

Doel said that should be a sign to employers that investing in workers is a way to keep them. In the past year, he said many workers, particularly younger ones, have considered leaving their jobs. The employers that are helping their workers add skills are more likely to hang onto them.

"It's the No. 1 thing they could do" to retain workers, Doel said.

Even with training, however, limiting quitting could be a challenge for some employers years after the job-hopping frenzy of the Great Resignation. In the survey, 42% of employees said they'd considered leaving their roles in the past year. Millennials, who represent the biggest slice of the nation's workforce, were the most likely age group to say they'd considered it.

The main reasons workers thought about it weren't new: About one-third pointed to work-life balance, while a similar share identified insufficient pay. Another third said "feeling disrespected" at work animated their thoughts of resigning.

Doel said it's also not surprising that the survey highlighted a gap between what workers want and what employers want regarding where work gets done.

Five years since the pandemic rejiggered how many workers do their jobs, flexibility around where they work remains key for many employees. Seven in 10 survey respondents said remote work helped them balance the demands of their jobs with caretaking responsibilities.

Even as some high-profile employers — including Amazon, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs — have called workers back to the office, workers in the survey indicated they liked some degree of autonomy even though they see the office having benefits.

Forty-seven percent of survey respondents reported being more productive in the office, while 62% said the social aspects of working in the office helped foster a stronger corporate culture and their own sense of belonging.

Ultimately, Doel said, it appears that many employers and their employees have settled into a truce on the issue.

"That's not the top priority of organizations anymore," he said, referring to return-to-office mandates. "We've kind of reached a homeostasis."

Using AI for work-life balance

In some cases, Doel said, workers appear to be eyeing tech like generative AI as an avenue for achieving better work-life balance.

"They're looking at GenAI as one of the enablers of a more flexible work environment," Doel said. Workers who use tools like it to get their work done more efficiently might feel they could have a greater say in how they structure their jobs, he said.

Employees also see other areas where they could enjoy more flexibility. Two-thirds of respondents said they believed that a four-day workweek of 32 hours could achieve the same level of productivity as a 40-hour week. And 45% said efficiency gains from GenAI could help make a four-day week more feasible.

"They think it's going to allow them to be more flexible in their work-model contract with employers," Doel said, referring to workers' views on GenAI.

A recent firmware pushed to QNAP network attached storage (NAS) devices left a number of owners unable to access their storage systems. The company has pulled back the firmware and issued a fixed version, but the company's response has left some users feeling less confident in the boxes into which they put all their digital stuff.

As seen on a QNAP community thread, and as announced by QNAP itself, the QNAP operating system, QTS, received update 5.2.2.2950, build 20241114, at some point around November 19. After QNAP "received feedbacks from some users reporting issues with device functionality after installation," the firm says it withdrew it, "conducted a comprehensive investigation," and re-released a fixed version "within 24 hours."

The community thread sees many more users of different systems having problems than the shortlist ("limited models of TS-x53D series and TS-x51 series") released by QNAP. Issues reported included owners being rejected as an authorized user, devices reporting issues with booting, and claims of Python not being installed to run some apps and services.

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