RTO 5 days a week or quit? How one Paramount manager made his decision.

Ron Telemarque had 11 days to decide: accept severance or return to the office full time. He shared how he decided whether to stay at Paramount - and whether he regrets it months later. In recent years, many workers have had to adapt to return-to-office mandates . In September, Ron Telemarque was given 11 days to make a difficult decision: leave his job at Paramount Skydance - or prepare to work from the office five days a week. He's confident he made the right choice. For the first half of this year, Telemarque commuted to the office two days a week in his role as senior manager of deal finance strategy. When management changes tied to the company's merger bumped that up to three days for his team starting in September, Telemarque and his wife began preparing a childcare plan for their four-year-old daughter on the days he'd have to make the 90-minute, one-way commute. But on September 4, their plans were scrambled. David Ellison, who became CEO in August following the merger's closing, issued an ultimatum to most employees: return to the office five days a week starting in January, or accept a severance package by September 15. "They dropped the bomb: 'Hey, it's five days a week - take it or leave it,'" Telemarque said. Over the past year, Business Insider has spoken with more than a dozen workers like Telemarque who have been affected by return-to-office mandates . Several large employers - including Amazon , JPMorgan , AT&T , and Microsoft - have rolled back remote work policies, prompting some employees to reconsider where they live, how they manage childcare, and whether to stay in their jobs. While some workers are happy to return to the office for camaraderie and a change of scenery, others have requested flexibility from their managers or parted ways with their employers. At Paramount, about 600 employees accepted severance packages after the company announced its new five-day office policy. In the September 4 memo to employees, Ellison said that "in-person collaboration is absolutely vital to building and strengthening our culture and driving the success of our business." Telemarque shared the personal and professional factors he weighed when deciding whether to stay at Paramount - and how he feels about that choice months later. Deciding whether to commit to a 5-day commute When Telemarque joined Paramount, then called ViacomCBS, in 2021, he worked remotely with the understanding that he'd eventually be required to follow a hybrid schedule. This ultimately meant commuting to the company's Manhattan office two days a week, starting in early 2022. Telemarque said the two-day commute from Stamford, where he and his wife began renting in 2020, included a 20-minute walk to the train station, a 45- to 50-minute train ride, and another 20-minute walk from Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. He said the commute was manageable from both a personal and childcare standpoint for him and his wife, who works remotely as a full-time marketing director. Telemarque would...

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