4 employees on why they quit or refused jobs before RTO

Schmidt later told The Wall Street Journal that he “misspoke,” but his comments further fueled the office debate.

While Google is tightening its hybrid work policy and Apple has run into trouble trying to enforce hybrid work, Meta and Amazon have already imposed RTO or “return to the hub” mandates. Most recently, Dell told hybrid workers to come to the office three days a week.

However, a recent study of RTO policies by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business found that forcing reluctant employees to return to the office decreases job satisfaction without significantly impacting productivity.

And not all workers are willing to make the sacrifice.

Business Insider spoke to four people who shared their experiences with RTO mandates and why they left their jobs or withdrew from hiring processes before returning to the office.

A woman moved to the states days before Amazon applied the RTO

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

She told BI that, as a person with a disability, she had been working remotely for years before the pandemic as a result of stressful experiences at the office.

Amazon employees were working remotely when he joined the company in September 2022. Carter, who was based in Chicago, decided to relocate to Raleigh, North Carolina.

She said she was tired of Chicago’s long, dark winters and wanted a warmer, safe, not-too-big metropolitan location. Raleigh checked all those boxes, according to Carter.

She talked to her manager and the skip level manager about the move a few months before she moved to Raleigh in March 2023.

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

Carter said she loved living in Raleigh and couldn’t afford to move back to Chicago or another central city. She started applying for jobs at other companies in April and landed one at a Fortune 500 company three months later.

Carter told BI if Amazon had never announced RTOs or layoffs, he likely would have stayed with the company.

An Amazon spokesman said it believes being in the office at least three days a week is “the right long-term approach.” They added that they had processes in place to accommodate layoffs and provide financial assistance when asking 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 DEI director at UCLA in March 2021. She told BI that the fact that the position was remote was the main draw to apply. She was already planning to move from California to Michigan with her family when she got the job.

Working from home suited Little-Surowski’s lifestyle. She could drop her daughter off at school in the morning and, on the other hand, help her husband expand his business and web investments—all while making a positive impact in higher education.

By the time UCLA issued an RTO mandate requiring employees to work from the office at least two days a week, Little-Surowski had already moved to Michigan.

She said BI UCLA never explicitly stated she would have to live in the state and her employers did not know she had moved to Michigan. The change in policy made her uneasy.

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

Little-Surowski asked if she could work in the office four days a week, every other week, instead of two days a week, given the time and cost of the flight from Michigan. Although her request was approved, she found flying back and forth a challenge.

When Little-Surowski had her third child, she decided to quit to focus on the family business and taking care of her children. She told BI that she could not justify sacrificing her dreams and family time to help an organization achieve its goals.

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

An Amazon worker faces losing his job if he doesn’t move

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

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

Last September, the developer told BI that they were angry and frustrated that they had returned to Amazon specifically to work remotely. The company’s withdrawal from remote work was a big breach of trust, they added.

The employee told the local managers that they would not be moving and at the time of the interview they were looking for developer jobs at other companies.

They told BI that they are also concerned about the application of RTO mandates to other companies. They said that not being willing to move meant their jobs would always be at risk for reasons unrelated to their performance, adding that the thought was scary.

An Amazon spokesperson said it believes being in the office at least three days a week “drives culture, team connection, innovation and learning.” They added that they have consistently explained their approach to remote working will “evolve” since the pandemic.

A single mother turned down a job because of her RTO mandate

Attorney Kimberley Whitaker has worked in the office two days a week since September 2022. As a single mother, Whitaker said she had to get up at 5:15 a.m. to get to the office, but she loved seeing her colleagues in person during those days.

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

During her interview, the company said employees must work from their desks five days a week.

When she heard their protocol from the office, she told BI she was disappointed. She should put her daughter in before- and after-school childcare every day, and perhaps in extra evening childcare.

The company wanted Whitaker to move on to the next round of interviews, but she decided to withdraw from the application process because she didn’t think she could match the RTO for her daughter’s care.

Whitaker told BI in September 2023 that she believed asking employees to go into RTO full-time was outdated, and if the role was hybrid, she would consider moving forward with the interview.