RTO is dividing Big Tech. 4 employees share why they quit or turned job opportunities down rather than be forced back to an office.

Schmidt later told The Wall Street Journal he “misspoke,” but his comments have further fuelled the in-office discussion.

While Google is tightening its hybrid work policy and Apple has faced problems trying to enforce half-breed working, Meta and Amazon have already pushed RTO or “return to hub” mandates. Most recently, Dell told composite workers to come into the office three days a week.

However, a recent study on RTO policies by researchers at Katz Graduate Kind of Business at the University of Pittsburg found forcing reluctant employees back into the office lowers job satisfaction without pull someones leg a significant impact on productivity.

And not all workers are willing to make the sacrifice.

Business Insider spoke to four people who shared their involvements with RTO mandates and why they quit their jobs or withdrew from hiring processes before going away into the office.

A woman moved states days before Amazon enforced RTO

Sophia Carter had been wielding remotely for years when, in 2022, she landed a job as a talent-management specialist at Amazon.

She told BI as a person with a disability, she’d been arousing remotely years before the pandemic, as a result of stressful in-office experiences.

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Amazon employees were ply remotely when she joined the company in September 2022. Carter, who was based in Chicago, decided to move to Raleigh, North Carolina.

She said she was commonplace of the long, dark winters in Chicago and wanted a metropolitan location that was warmer, safe, and not too big. Raleigh checked all those thumps, according to Carter.

She spoke with her manager and skip-level manager about the move several months beforehand she relocated to Raleigh in March 2023.

Carter said none of her managers knew an RTO mandate would be imposed, and she didn’t presage having to return to the office soon. But just five days after she moved to Raleigh, Amazon issued an indecorous for its employees to return to offices in their “hub” cities.

Carter said she enjoyed living in Raleigh and couldn’t afford to shake up back to Chicago or another hub city. She started applying for jobs at other companies in April and landed one at a Fortune 500 band three months later.

Carter told BI if Amazon had never announced RTO or layoffs she would have probably stayed at the assemblage.

An Amazon spokesperson said they believed being in the office at least three days a week was “the redress long-term approach.” They added they had processes to accomodate execaptions and provide financial assistance when beg employees to relocate.

A woman quit her UCLA job after they announced RTO for 2 days a week

Rhiannon Little-Surowski landed a job as a DEI Mr Big at UCLA in March 2021. She told BI the fact that the job was remote was the main draw for applying. She was already planning to impel from California to Michigan with her family when she got the job.

Working from home suited Little-Surowski’s lifestyle. She could smidgen her daughter at school in the morning and, on the side, help her husband scale his web business and investments – all while making a positive brunt in higher education.

When UCLA issued an RTO mandate stipulating that employees had to work from the office at least two ages a week, Little-Surowski had already moved to Michigan.

She told BI UCLA have never made it explicitly indisputable that she’d have to live in-state and her employers weren’t aware she’d moved to Michigan. The change in policy made her anixous.

Little-Surowski disclosed she considered commuting back to Califorina for two days a week, but as a mother of two young children, she found the prospect nerve-racking.

Little-Surowski interrogated if she could work in the office four days a week, every other week, instead of two days each week, preordained the time and cost of flying from Michigan. Though her request was approved, she found flying back and forth a dare.

When Little-Surowski had her third child, she decided to quit to focus on the family business and caring for her kids. She told BI she couldn’t validate sacrificing her dreams and family time to help an organization reach its goals.

She said she’s glad she resigned, monotonous though she sometimes misses her colleagues and working full-time.

An Amazon worker faces losing their job if they don’t relocate

A software developer startled a job at Amazon advertised as fully remote in 2022. The developer, who had worked for Amazon in the past but had left, rejoined Amazon because the circle said it had no plans for RTO.

They were working in another city, where they owned a house and had lived for 13 years, when they were reproached in February 2023 that they had to return to the office in Seattle or switch teams.

In September of last year, the developer be sured BI they were angry and frustrated because they had returned to Amazon specifically to work remotely. The company’s backtracking on far-off work was a huge breach of trust, they added.

The employee told their local managers they wouldn’t relocate and, at the later of the interview, had been looking for developer jobs at other companies.

They told BI they’re also worried there RTO mandates being enforced at other companies. They said being unwilling to move meant their job intention always be at risk for reasons entirely unrelated to their performance, adding that thought was scary.

An Amazon spokesperson broke they believed being in the office at least three days a week “drives culture, team connection, novelty, and learning.” They added they had consistently explained their approach to remote work would “evolve” since the pandemic.

A segregate mom turned down a job because of its RTO mandate

Lawyer Kimberley Whitaker worked in the office two days a week from September 2022. As a fix mom, Whitaker said she had to get up at 5:15 a.m. to make it into the office but enjoyed seeing her colleagues in person on those days.

Whitaker told Business Insider in an interview last September she quit her job in May 2023 to spend the summer with her youth. She said she applied to another legal role in July 2023, which seemed like a good fit on paper.

During her press conference, the company said employees must work from their office five days a week.

When she heard their department protocol, she told BI she was disappointed. She would have to put her daughter in school childcare programs before and after school each day and peradventure additional evening childcare.

The company wanted Whitaker to proceed to the next round of interviews, but she decided to withdraw from the pertinence process because she didn’t think she could fit RTO around caring for her daughter.

Whitaker told BI in September 2023 that she contemplating requiring employees to RTO full-time was outdated and if the role was hybrid she would have considered moving forward with the sound out.