This announcement is pretty much meaningless, as it's completely up to the VPs of a given org to set the policy. Many teams have already been back 3-5 days a week for over a year, and exceptions aren't hard to get if you're a senior+ employee or otherwise have considerations that prevent this from being feasible.
Anecdotally, I'm at a larger multinational corporation and our site has been mandating a new RTO policy and have not been granting exceptions based solely on seniority. In my personal opinion I believe it's mostly a soft layoff, so they can approve exceptions on a case-by-case basis.
Indeed. Apart from really aggressive, "love the bad press" type of employers most would try to appear reasonable from outside while largely rejecting wfh/remote requests lasting more than few months.
I don't think I'd call it meaningless; this sets the new default for the many orgs who haven't set a mandate already, and it seems to indicate that exceptions will now be harder to get.
Fair point. I've wasted way too much time arguing about this in my org. The messaging is effectively that the "data" (which is never presented to anyone) indicates on-site is better, and if you disagree, feel free to go test the job market.
