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I’ve been with a Spanish company for about 7-8 years and have known the CTO for around 10 years. He’s a fantastic guy who gets things done. Our work-from-home (WFH) policy was already pretty flexible before 2020, as long as we met deadlines, we had the freedom to work remotely.
When the pandemic hit, transitioning to full remote work was a breeze for us. We even started hiring people from outside the city, offering them good salaries compared to their local options.
During this time, I also moved out of the city. In 2021, the company brought in a new CEO from England. He seemed laid-back at first, working from his countryside home.
However, once the pandemic ended, he began pushing hard for everyone to return to the office. He sent out polls and long emails about how in-office work was better for team relationships and so on. He was so insistent that he complained to the CTO about the lack of RTO compliance.
To address this, the CTO arranged a day when everyone in the tech team had to come into the office. He even offered to cover travel costs for those who lived far away. We all made the effort, with some traveling for 2-3 hours.
The only person who didn’t show up that day? The CEO.
The CTO took a photo of the full office and sent it to the CEO with a message saying, “If you can’t lead by example, don’t push my team to do things that don’t work.” After that, the CEO stopped pushing for RTO.
In the end, the RTO mandate was dropped, the CEO left the company a year later, the office was closed, and now everyone works 100% from home. The CTO became acting CEO, and everything is running smoothly.
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I’ve been with a Spanish company for about 7-8 years and know the CTO well. Our flexible work-from-home (WFH) policy made transitioning to remote work during the pandemic easy. We even hired people from outside the city with competitive salaries.
In 2021, a new CEO from England joined and initially seemed relaxed. However, he pushed hard for everyone to return to the office after the pandemic, sending out polls and emails about the benefits of in-office work.
To address his push, the CTO organized a day for the tech team to come into the office, even covering travel costs for those who lived far away. Everyone showed up except the CEO.
The CTO sent a photo of the full office to the CEO with a message saying, “If you can’t lead by example, don’t push my team to do things that don’t work.” After that, the CEO stopped insisting on RTO.
Ultimately, the RTO mandate was dropped, the CEO left the company, the office was closed, and now everyone works from home. The CTO became the acting CEO, and everything is running smoothly.
Let’s swiftly assess a handful of the top comments: CEO Forced to Backtrack on Return-to-Office Policy After Malicious Compliance
PN_Guin writes:
Interesting twist on compliance by forcing everyone to comply (once), to out the only one that didn’t (the ceo).
gsadamb writes:
When I worked at Google, there was a tech leader, Urs Holzle, who was in charge of most of engineering. During the pandemic, he fucked off to New Zealand. Then Google started pushing RTO hard. Urs is still in NZ. I think they restructured him into a senior advisor role who no longer has direct reports, because they probably couldn’t justify it to employees they were forcing to RTO.
I’m sure he’s still paid as much as he was though.
Attygalle writes:
We got a new manager around the end of 2020 – pandemic in full swing, everybody WFH. The manager lived more than 2 hours from the office but was adamant that once the pandemic was over, he would be in the office every week. Fast forward to early 2022 (I guess? Not sure about exact timelines) and all restrictions were gone in our country. Guess who didn’t show up in the office? Our new manager. So what, you might think. Guess who was pushing every other team member to go to the office at least twice a week? You get it, the exact same manager who didn’t come to the office.
He either was an Academy Award winning actor or just really that thick, because people called him out on it and he simply played as if he didn’t understand it at all. “I live more than two hours away, my situation is different!”
Total clown.
Dubai_Donkey writes:
you don’t explain why the CEO didn’t come… If the Owner is asking everyone to be there what was his excuse?
RancidHorseJizz writes:
The CTO was already the CEO; he was just in denial.
