Fidelity Ends Hybrid Work, Requires US Staff in Office Five Days a Week

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's so stupid. Id rather have a happy financial advisor than a miserable one l working in an open office.

They will recover and be just fine.

[Anonymous]

Right now the job market is very tight and companies have their pick from many people desperate for a job when hiring. If the economy ever switches back to a good market for job seekers, this will be a negotiating point and companies will lose out on the best talent.

That is a big if, considering our current president seems Hell-bent on destroying the economy and has been failing to create jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That's so stupid. Id rather have a happy financial advisor than a miserable one l working in an open office.

They will recover and be just fine.

No, the good ones will leave and go where they are valued.
Take your money out of fidelity and go with them.

[Anonymous]

I’m so happy that most of our leadership team lives in NY. As the person responsible for people and culture it allows me to hold the line with our CEO. Every time he starts with “we’ve got to get people back to the office”, I get to ask who will be in to mentor the people on-site and he backs right off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last two comments are Stockholm Syndrome.

Five days a week in the office sucks. Agree this is mostly to try to get people to quit so they don’t have to pay. Have no doubt that the big portfolio managers will have no problem being MIA on Fridays while everyone else miserably marches in.

100 percent. The posts are just confirmation of Dostoeyevsky's statement that a human being can get used to anything (prison, pain, tortured suffering)

+1. So much of modern employment feels like a humiliation ritual. How much are you willing to degrade yourself and grovel and for how small of a wage?

Being asked by your employer to go into the office is a humiliation ritual? It's called work for a reason and you're paid to do it. Please tell me that you're a troll.

Not PP but yes, it is when it is done for no other reason than to make your life worse, in the hope that some people will quit and help cut costs.

Work can happen at home too. I’m sure you’re one of those people for whom it is a foreign concept but in modern professional services jobs it is not necessary for the work to happen in the same physical location.

Of trust me there are a LOT of other reasons to require in office work attendance. I'll help you out with them..List all the reasons you want to work from home:
1. You can do laundry (this is NOT productive paid work)
2. You can watch your kids (this is not work and you are not being paid by your company to do this)
3. You can make dinner (you are not getting paid to do this)
4. You can get a workout in (not getting paid for this)

All the employers know whats been going on and they want it to stop and they want you to work the entire day.

Nope, the main reason is that commuting in the DMV sucks and wastes up to an hour of my day. Add in overpriced lunch and coffee, time wasters stopping by my office, and other pointless general frictions (wasting time finding meeting room space, going through security, waiting for elevators, packing and unpacking your bag daily, etc). It’s pointless. If the focus was on “work(ing) the entire day” then they wouldn’t choose the option with so much wasted time in it.

We are talking about high-level professional jobs here where the work is clearly getting done regardless, not bean counting the minutes in pointless office jobs like whatever hick town you’re commenting from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last two comments are Stockholm Syndrome.

Five days a week in the office sucks. Agree this is mostly to try to get people to quit so they don’t have to pay. Have no doubt that the big portfolio managers will have no problem being MIA on Fridays while everyone else miserably marches in.

100 percent. The posts are just confirmation of Dostoeyevsky's statement that a human being can get used to anything (prison, pain, tortured suffering)

+1. So much of modern employment feels like a humiliation ritual. How much are you willing to degrade yourself and grovel and for how small of a wage?

Being asked by your employer to go into the office is a humiliation ritual? It's called work for a reason and you're paid to do it. Please tell me that you're a troll.

Not PP but yes, it is when it is done for no other reason than to make your life worse, in the hope that some people will quit and help cut costs.

Work can happen at home too. I’m sure you’re one of those people for whom it is a foreign concept but in modern professional services jobs it is not necessary for the work to happen in the same physical location.

Of trust me there are a LOT of other reasons to require in office work attendance. I'll help you out with them..List all the reasons you want to work from home:
1. You can do laundry (this is NOT productive paid work)
2. You can watch your kids (this is not work and you are not being paid by your company to do this)
3. You can make dinner (you are not getting paid to do this)
4. You can get a workout in (not getting paid for this)

All the employers know whats been going on and they want it to stop and they want you to work the entire day.

Nope, the main reason is that commuting in the DMV sucks and wastes up to an hour of my day. Add in overpriced lunch and coffee, time wasters stopping by my office, and other pointless general frictions (wasting time finding meeting room space, going through security, waiting for elevators, packing and unpacking your bag daily, etc). It’s pointless. If the focus was on “work(ing) the entire day” then they wouldn’t choose the option with so much wasted time in it.

We are talking about high-level professional jobs here where the work is clearly getting done regardless, not bean counting the minutes in pointless office jobs like whatever hick town you’re commenting from.

+1 and a 30 min commute door to door that adds up to just 1 hr a day is pretty short for this area!

If people are unproductive or unreachable etc they can just be fired. There are no worker protections in most of these fields. Just lazy managers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right now the job market is very tight and companies have their pick from many people desperate for a job when hiring. If the economy ever switches back to a good market for job seekers, this will be a negotiating point and companies will lose out on the best talent.

That is a big if, considering our current president seems Hell-bent on destroying the economy and has been failing to create jobs.

This truly makes no sense to me. If they are looking to cut costs, they can downsize or eliminate office space. Plus by going remote, they have access to the best talent from across the country rather than only the immediate metro area.

[Anonymous]

Ridiculous so many of us are spending an extra 10-20 hours a week to move our laptop from point A to point B

Seems shortsighted of companies and an assumption the labor market will never improve. Except it might and then you have millions of American workers who are convinced their company leaders are incompetent fools. It doesn’t bode well for the future.

Every day I spend hours to commute to sit on Teams calls I think about how stupid this is. If the labor market improves all these companies are F’d.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last two comments are Stockholm Syndrome.

Five days a week in the office sucks. Agree this is mostly to try to get people to quit so they don’t have to pay. Have no doubt that the big portfolio managers will have no problem being MIA on Fridays while everyone else miserably marches in.

100 percent. The posts are just confirmation of Dostoeyevsky's statement that a human being can get used to anything (prison, pain, tortured suffering)

+1. So much of modern employment feels like a humiliation ritual. How much are you willing to degrade yourself and grovel and for how small of a wage?

Being asked by your employer to go into the office is a humiliation ritual? It's called work for a reason and you're paid to do it. Please tell me that you're a troll.

Not PP but yes, it is when it is done for no other reason than to make your life worse, in the hope that some people will quit and help cut costs.

Work can happen at home too. I’m sure you’re one of those people for whom it is a foreign concept but in modern professional services jobs it is not necessary for the work to happen in the same physical location.

Of trust me there are a LOT of other reasons to require in office work attendance. I'll help you out with them..List all the reasons you want to work from home:
1. You can do laundry (this is NOT productive paid work)
2. You can watch your kids (this is not work and you are not being paid by your company to do this)
3. You can make dinner (you are not getting paid to do this)
4. You can get a workout in (not getting paid for this)

All the employers know whats been going on and they want it to stop and they want you to work the entire day.

It bothers you that people are doing this instead of commuting? I now spend 3-4 hours a day commuting instead of making dinner, working out etc. How is this efficient?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good. It’s time to take your pajama pants off and rejoin the adult world.

This is such a silly comment and so patronizing and reductivist. I don’t spend all day in my pajamas. I get ready for my day every day (including getting dressed and doing hair and makeup).

Hybrid (which we still have, knock on wood/thank goodness) allows me to get my children from aftercare earlier (I pay for both pre and post school aftercare for my elementary age children). I can do a quick load of laundry, avoid a maddening commute some of the week, get a workout in, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Last two comments are Stockholm Syndrome.

Five days a week in the office sucks. Agree this is mostly to try to get people to quit so they don’t have to pay. Have no doubt that the big portfolio managers will have no problem being MIA on Fridays while everyone else miserably marches in.

100 percent. The posts are just confirmation of Dostoeyevsky's statement that a human being can get used to anything (prison, pain, tortured suffering)

+1. So much of modern employment feels like a humiliation ritual. How much are you willing to degrade yourself and grovel and for how small of a wage?

Being asked by your employer to go into the office is a humiliation ritual? It's called work for a reason and you're paid to do it. Please tell me that you're a troll.

Not PP but yes, it is when it is done for no other reason than to make your life worse, in the hope that some people will quit and help cut costs.

Work can happen at home too. I’m sure you’re one of those people for whom it is a foreign concept but in modern professional services jobs it is not necessary for the work to happen in the same physical location.

Of trust me there are a LOT of other reasons to require in office work attendance. I'll help you out with them..List all the reasons you want to work from home:
1. You can do laundry (this is NOT productive paid work)
2. You can watch your kids (this is not work and you are not being paid by your company to do this)
3. You can make dinner (you are not getting paid to do this)
4. You can get a workout in (not getting paid for this)

All the employers know whats been going on and they want it to stop and they want you to work the entire day.

Nope, the main reason is that commuting in the DMV sucks and wastes up to an hour of my day. Add in overpriced lunch and coffee, time wasters stopping by my office, and other pointless general frictions (wasting time finding meeting room space, going through security, waiting for elevators, packing and unpacking your bag daily, etc). It’s pointless. If the focus was on “work(ing) the entire day” then they wouldn’t choose the option with so much wasted time in it.

We are talking about high-level professional jobs here where the work is clearly getting done regardless, not bean counting the minutes in pointless office jobs like whatever hick town you’re commenting from.

+1 and a 30 min commute door to door that adds up to just 1 hr a day is pretty short for this area!

If people are unproductive or unreachable etc they can just be fired. There are no worker protections in most of these fields. Just lazy managers.

Yes, sorry, meant to say up to an hour each way.

[Anonymous]

When companies have to compete for talent (not the current situation in this sh*t economy for job seekers), this will he a deciding point for top talent, like it or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When companies have to compete for talent (not the current situation in this sh*t economy for job seekers), this will he a deciding point for top talent, like it or not.

DP to add, and companies with large remote workforces who don't have large buildings to maintain and pay for will also be able to offer higher salaries. Would say it is a losing strategy for companies in 2026 to require 100 percent in person work. Top talent who have a choice will choose elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When companies have to compete for talent (not the current situation in this sh*t economy for job seekers), this will he a deciding point for top talent, like it or not.

DP to add, and companies with large remote workforces who don't have large buildings to maintain and pay for will also be able to offer higher salaries. Would say it is a losing strategy for companies in 2026 to require 100 percent in person work. Top talent who have a choice will choose elsewhere.

Agree, and as companies grow they are either going to have to spend to get even more office space to accommodate everyone or reconfigure the space while making it crappier for everyone. Advantage will go to those who offer flexibility.

[Anonymous]

They also want to stop employees from working multiple gigs at once, which will make you a nice loyal dependent asset to your employer.