Can't see many employees being happy with that. It's about give and take. If my employer started being a bit stricter in petty ways I might find myself getting to and leaving work dead on time, rather than being early and late when circumstances require

I used to work for a company that is a huge supplier to the cable industry. There was no dress code (unless you were meeting customers) and flexible/home working was encouraged - understandable since one of our product lines revolved around ways to make that happen. Somehow these awful traits didn't prevent the company from getting to where it is today.

Wearing a suit and "bums on seats" doesn't always translate into happier employees, a better workplace, or higher productivity

This is the, don't like it, leave attitude. They want people to leave on their own, since it will result in less people having to be laid off, thus less severance they(Charter) has to pay out.

While Rutledge may have been good for shareholders, he has been a complete nightmare for customers and employees. Unfortunately, in today's corporate world, customers and employees are viewed as a necessary evil, rather than an asset.

Oh, and remember, next Friday is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans.

The pendulum is swinging back to old ways. I've been with my current employer for 21 years now. Shortly after I started they had a massive project to "homebase" all sales reps. The company had offices in every major city and giving the reps a desk, phone line and laptop was far cheaper than renting enough office space. When I left customer service and went to one of the engineering teams I became homebased because I was willing to work night shift and be the person on nights that fixed things. I did that for 12 years and never once had an issue with doing my job or keeping up with inbound trouble tickets. In fact, its rather easy to know if someone isn't doing their job because they're not responding to pages or resolving incidents. Its something that shows like a sore thumb.

The past few years now I've been on day shift doing project work. Again, something I could do from home where I don't have someone walking up to me asking me to take a look at something they discovered or chat about the latest joke, etc. I have a proven track record of being able to work independently without prodding or pushing from management, but someone high up has decided that telecommuting is the devil once more. You can see it in other companies like Yahoo and Reddit. They used to have liberal policies regarding working from home. No more.

The pendulum will swing the other way hopefully. It usually does.

A lot depends upon the industry and the competition for qualified employees in the area.

When I ran software engineering departments, it was tough to find quality software engineers because of the competition from other companies in the area.

To retain quality engineers, one of the things I always kept in mind was that the assets of the software engineering team walked out the door at the end of each day. One of the things I focused upon was to assure that they all wanted to come back the next business day.

My guess is that this has to do with the inclusion of Gen Z workers into the workforce, who do not understand how hard it was for Gen X to get telecommuting into the workplace. Employers are tired of substandard work and a lack of productivity. There are several different articles (non-tech oriented) and also included in the last Federal Reserve report that stated productivity is dropping further and faster and they don't know what to do. So they are pulling back on this benefit, and in such they are treating work as a privilege (which is fine that is their right to do). To use an analogy ... they are throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If an employer wishes that they want their folks dressed professionally, and to have them in an office super. The unintended consequence is that productivity will drop even further and they will have less work done. People will be subversive even more. I look at this way ... using my life as an example. If I had to commute into an office I lose 90-110 minutes one way with a commute. (lets call it 3 hours) that I play low value chauffeur instead of high paid tech guy. Couple that with not having access to coffee and food readily available. More time will be lost. My guess is 4-4.5 hours out of my day I will be using not working.

Lastly ... Given the expenditure of commuting and dealing with other life stresses ... when I get home .... I will be done. So instead of getting a solid 10-12 hours out of me ... on a perfect day maybe they will get 8 ... more then like 5-6 .... all by a decision.

And if you ask ... I am a top performer and I give 110% and get nearly perfect ratings on all of my reviews. So do you want someone who gives 110% going from 10-12 hours down to 5-6? That is going to happen ..... I know I am one of the 10% that produces heavily .... and I know at Charter they probably have an equivalent like me over there ... This policy change will more then likely affect them. So expect Charter to have issues coming ....

that your employees are little cogs in your big machine instead of human beings. That'll make everything run smoother.

Make it one that the employees have to earn. I know of a company that uses telecommuting as a benefit. Their sales staff that is achieving above their plan doesn't have to check into the office for instance. There are measurable things that the company looks at and the employees can work towards in order to get the privilege to work from home. What they have found is the employees who achieve measurable results and are consistent in their work ethic tend to telecommute just about all the time.
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My domain - Nightfall.net

I can see coming to work every day as something that needed changing. Where I work, there are a few people who take the day off and email everyone they are "working from home" when we all know they are not doing a damn thing. They get away with it because they are upper management and the directors don't care. But we can't do that same practice because we have to be at work every day. So yeah coming to work every day is something every job should require.

Dress code? I don't know about that one. If the person sits in his/her cube all day and answers customer service calls, what good is khakis and a button down dress shirt? Let them wear jeans. Morale is one of the major killers of any job. If they meet outside clients every day or they are in meetings every day then yes some sort of formal dress code should be there.