A 1-2 ago, I would have given a rating of 4 or 5 stars, but now it's dropped to 2 stars. Earlier, they listened to their employees. They allowed remote work permanently, which we employees considered the biggest benefit in the company and we have identified this also in Great Place To Work questionnaire. We were so grateful for this. It had extremely big impact to our lives in terms of work-life balance and our families were much happier when we had this benefit.
They returned most of the Prague office spaces to the landlord and hired many people from cities other than Prague. On interviews, it was verbally promised this situation will remain as everyone is benefiting from this. They assured us that this work model has brought numerous benefits to our professional and personal lives and they will keep it.
Prague has the most expensive real estate in all of Europe compared to wages. As a result, many of us bought homes far away from Prague.
Now, they have decided to require us to go to the Prague office two days a week, even if all our team members are in Bonn or Malaysia, or if our team consists of only 2-3 people and meeting them is almost impossible. So now, even if you live 3 hours away from Prague, you have to travel to the office and work there without being able to interact with your team members. The office is too crowded, making it difficult to hear during calls, and meeting rooms are often occupied. If you are a programmer, you hardly can concentrate.
Lunch is either in a noisy kitchen or an expensive restaurant where you eat alone because your colleagues are in different cities, then you spend another hours traveling back home.
It doesn't make sense. This situation should be addressed individually with each person, based on whether it causes more harm than benefit.
It really doesn't make sense to ask what we want and what we appreciate and then do the exact opposite next year.
So what really happened, DHL?