In office changes - Anonymous employee Mastercard Employee Review

Mastercard recently changed their work remote policy to being in the office 3 days a week. This is unfortunate as a lot of the resources that work here do not live close to the office due to the exorbitant cost of living near the New York City metropolitan area. Some of the best resources I work with have a commute of 1.5 to 2 hours. They’ve chosen to live in areas that are better suited for raising a family and more affordable to do so. Mastercard has some very high quality resources but they don’t pay near the top of the salary range for technology companies. While I think Mastercard is a great place to work for a lot of reasons it’s simply just not feasible that the vast majority can live within a reasonable commuting time of 30 minutes. I think it will only be a matter of time until some of these high quality resources find employment opportunities that offer a more flexible work arrangement. Speaking first hand the current policy seems to be working very well and I can attest that productivity is higher here than any other company I have worked at. I fear changing their policy will ultimately affect morale in a very negative way eventually leading to employee turnover. I don’t think 1.5 to 2 hour commute, 3 days a week is sustainable long term. I believe this decision will be an inflection point which will affect the company negatively. I anticipate the additional commuting time will affect the quality of the work being done as people will now have to concern themselves on how to absorb losing 3-4 hours of time a day or more (9-12 hours week). This decision is unfortunate and I think management should consider delaying this or possible reconsider something more flexible like 3 days once a month, two entire weeks a quarter, average of x amount of days per month. This decision feels like a rigid step backwards