Remote Walmart employees across the United States are now questioning the company’s newly implemented in-person work policy. Some employees who have been ordered to relocate are even considering resigning.
In May, Walmart mandated that hundreds of remote workers relocate to its corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, or its other hubs in Hoboken, New Jersey, and Northern California. A recent Bloomberg report revealed that employees opposed the return-to-office mandate during a company-wide Zoom call, with some resigning.
During the call, one participant described the RTO policy as “a bunch of bullsh-t.” In contrast, others expressed concerns about the challenges of living in Arkansas, childcare arrangements, increased workload, and the potential impact on their partners’ careers due to the relocation.
A Walmart employee informed Bloomberg that he decided to resign from the company rather than relocate on such short notice. According to the report, employees unable to relocate must terminate their employment with the company between August 2024 and January 2025.
Worth noting that employees forced into similar situations should file for unemployment even though they resigned. It’s called constructive dismissal, which is basically when the company restructures your job and drastically changes it in some way. Like, for instance, changing your position from WFH to in-office, or cutting you from full time to part time.
From a legal standpoint, it is the same as them laying you off from your old job and offering you a new one with a modified job description. But if the new job position isn’t on par with what you were already doing, you don’t have to accept it and can file for unemployment instead.