Halloween Is A Great Time To Talk About How Companies Are Violating the Warn Act

By: Stephanie Diana Eubank

Many of us know companies pushing Return to Office or #RTO, forcing #remoteworkers to quit and find new remote opportunities. However, this tactic is not yet illegal in the strictest of guidelines. Still, it is a way that major companies are trying to skirt their responsibilities and requirements to follow the WARN Act. 

The WARN Act stands for the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which was installed into US Federal Labor Law in 1988.  This law requires employers with 100 or more employees to report if they plan a layoff within the next 60 days.  You can find out more information at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/layoffs/warn.

So, companies are taking a page out of the 2013 Yahoo CEO’s book to force remote workers back to the office to, in theory, improve communication, creativity, and synergy.  However, that theory was wrong, and the data now shows that in-person workers have fewer hours of productivity than their remote counterparts, as detailed by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS).  Also, remote work leaves room for neurodivergent workers like me who are comfortable in remote work to have more space to not emotionally mask and be more creative problem solvers.

With Halloween being the first holiday of the layoff season, we need to be mindful of how companies are using this #RTO method to skirt the law so as not to pay unemployment, not disclose to the WARN Act or investors about the need for layoffs, and change the narrative of the future of work. The law hasn’t caught up to this trend yet, but it could be interesting to see how companies adjust when it does. But this is additionally making it so companies are having a hard time attracting talent because so many want remote work and are not willing to #RTO or do #hybrid.

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