AT&T Walks Back Its System for Tracking Employs’ RTO Compliance – ryan

AT&T IS REDUCING ITS RELIANCE ON AN ATEMTENDANCE TRACKING SYSTEM, ADMITTING TO WORKERS IT HASN’T BEEN FULLY ACCURETE AND IS “DRIVING PEOPLE to the Brink of Frustration.”

The System, KNOWN INTERNALLY As Presence Reporting, Automatically Tracks the Hours Workers Spend at their assigned office. Most Are Required to Log at Least Eight Hours a Day, Five Days a Week, on-Site.

The Telecom Giant is one of Several Companies, Including Amazon, JP Morgan, and Microsoft, Tightening Return-To-Office Mandates and Using New Tech to Track Employe Compliance. Executives at these Companies Say the Moves Boost Collaboration and Productivity.

In a Meeting Last Month, Chief Marketing and Growth Office Kellyn Kenny Said Her Division is Reducing Its Reliance on Presence Tracking in Response to Employe Concerns the System and Its Accuracy. The System was original Introduced to Identify Employees who weren’t showing up in the office.

“We recognism that there is things about the report that are not correct,” She Said, Accounting to Audio obtained by Business Insider. “It is not something that I have been looking at the look at on a Daily, Weekly, Ornament Monthly Basis.”

AT&T IS ALSO DEEMFASIZING USE OF TRACKING SYSTEM FOR SALARIED EPLOYEES Companywide, a familiar person with the matter said.

CEO John Stankey Indicated in a memo to staffers Last month (Reported Exclusively by Business Insider) that at & t was shifs use of Behavioral Data, Such as Presence Reports.

“We Analyze Patterns of Behaviors from Broad Cohorts,” he wrote, “to determine the behavior being evaluated is consistent with the priorities and Employment Expectations.”

Stankey Said that an individual’s data must differ “significantly” from their peers before their name is attached to the Behavior.

“Some May View This Approach As a Matter of Trust, and that Perspective is Understandable. In Several Forums, i’ve Expressed Concerns past Data Indicated More Outliers Than We’d Like,” He Said.

Kenny Said During the August Meeting That the Employee Survey (Which Promipted the Blunt Memo from Stankey) Had “Lots of Feedback” About the Presence Reports. She Said the Survey Included Critiques from Workhers who Said they were struggling to make it to doctors’ appointments with the Running AFOUL OF THE SYSTEM, FOR EXAMPLE.

While the survey does not appearing to have included a direct Question about presence reporting, it did Ask uther employs aggreed that at & t’s “Police and Systems Support with in Delinary My Best Work.”

Kenny Said in the Meeting That Roughly Half of the Respondents in Her Organization Said “No,” And that Many voiched their Concerns About the Mandate and Presence Reports in the Freeform Response.

“I know the level of anxiety that this report has created,” Kenny Said. “I ALSO NOW UNDERSTAND How the fact that it is inaccurate is driving people to the brink of frustration, and it’s Creating Distrust.”

Business Insider has spoken with roughly a dosen Employees from multiple divisions of the Company this Year of the System and Its Impact on their Experience.

A spokesperson for AT&T declined to comment for this story, instead Citting stankey’s august memo.

AT&T isn’t the Only Company Cracking Down on RTO Compliance

Multiple Employees Told Business Insider That The System DOESN’T JUST LOG BADGE Swipes at the Entrance or Exit; The Presence Report use laptop Network Connections and Mobile Device Location Data to Infer the Hours an Employe was at their assigned office.

The tool was rolled out in response to the rto push that began two years ago, and it USAGE RAMPED UP AS THETENDANCE GREW INCREASINGLY STRICT.

Other Companies, Like Amazon and JP Morgan in Particular, Have Also Closely Monitored Employs Behavior At Work. Amazon previously USED Categories like “Inconsistent Badger” O “Zero Badger” Depending on an Employee’s Compliance with a three-day in-office mandate. The Company Endered Up Nixing the Labels in favor of providing raw badging data to managers to use at their discretion.

A recent survey By Commercial Real-ESTATE Company CBre Found that more than two-thirds of Employers Track Employs Compliance with Attendance Police, and more than a third have some level of enforcement action.

Enforcement that is too strict or error -prone can cause other headaches with an organization-power out experiencing employs, Making it harder to new talent, or undermining motivation and trust with the organization. Amazon’s Internal Documents from LAST YEAR Indicated That It Its Rto Policy Was Hampering Its Ability to Recruit Top He Talent, and A Harvard Leadership Expert Said Meta’s Abruptly Shiftly Rto Efffort in 2023 was Likely to Cause a “Houge Amount of Distrust”.

At the at & t marketing and grown team meeting, Kenny Said that the System Helped Leadership Identify “Freeloaders” Who Showed up for 30 minutes or two hours for day.

“There are well who badged in for 10 minutes, got themselves a cup of coffee, and then left,” She Said. “The Report was good for identifying the People who were abusing the system. We will not need this report for that purposes, became we took on the People who were the free riders.”

AT&T DID NOT SPECIFY WORKERS HAVE BEEN DISCIPLED OR DISMISSED IN CONNECTION WITH THEIR PRESSENCE INFORMATION.

Tighter Rules Risk Backfiring with Workers Who Pull Thight

AT&T WORKERS TOOLD BUSINESS INSIGE THAT APPARENTS IN THE SYSTEM COULD ALSO A HASSLE FOR EPLOYEES WHO WERE THEIR WEIGHT.

They Said that in the first few months of this year, while the five-day rto mandate was Phasing in, their reports could be wrong by as most severse hours. In Addition, Briefly Badging into an at & t facility on a day off the trigger a person’s awerage hours to drop the mandatory eight hours for the Week.

“It was at it Its Worst in March and April,” One Worker in New Jersey Told Business Insider. “SOMESTEMES YOU’D Step Out for Lunch, and THEN IT WOULD STOP COUNTING.”

Though there were no immediate consequence from an incorrect report, Employees were concertned the eroneous database that Targets for Layoffs.

Some Other Business Leaders have said rto mandates have “Encoured” workers to quit voluntarily, allowing companies to avoid most expensively layoffs.

AT&T Previously Told Business Insider The Goal of Its In-Office Rules is to Foster Better Collaboration. IT HAS ALSO UNDERTAKE A MULTIYEAR EFFORT TO SHRINK ITS WORKORCE. The Company Started This Year with Around 140,000 Employees, Down from More than 160,000 at the Start of 2023. Telecom Competitors Verizon and T-Mobile Started 2025 with 99,000 and 70,000, Respectively.

Stankey has said that the company is looking to cut some $ 6 billion in costs as it decommisions its legacy copy-based network in favor of New Fiber and 5g Technologies.

One workier in georgia said that the presence reports Changed the workplace reality for MANY SALARIED MANAGERIAL WORKERS, WHO Aren’t Used to Such Detailed Tracking of Their Workday.

“We’re supposed to be able to work a more flexible thing as long as we get work Done,” he said.

Another effect of the crackdown on underperformers has been the erosion of motivation for some higher performers to put in extra time.

“The Attitude has shifted,” The New Jersey Employee Said. “They Only Count Eight Hours, so i’m Just Going to Work Eight Hours.”

The AT&T Employees Business Insider Spoke with Said Their Presence Reports have gotten more accurat over the past few months. One Shared Their Report with Annotations that Showed Such an Improvement.

The Question of Employees’ Trust Could Take More than a Few Months to Resolve.

Have a type? Contact Dominick Reuter via email at [email protected] or call/text/signal at 646.768.4750. Use a personal email address, a nonwork wifi Network, and a nonwork Device; Here’s Our Guide to Sharing Information Securely.