FirstEnergy's new CEO, Brian Tierney, has made it abundantly clear that employee trust, engagement, and evidence-based decision-making are not priorities under his leadership. Despite his own admission that remote work can be effective, Tierney continues to enforce a regressive return-to-office mandate under the justification that we "need 10 years of data" to prove remote work is viable. That’s not leadership, that’s intellectual laziness disguised as caution.
Instead of empowering teams to deliver results in the ways that have proven effective over the past several years, Tierney is forcing everyone back into a dated office model despite widespread dissatisfaction, the proven success of remote teams in IT, and rising turnover across the company. His approach seems less about what works and more about what feels familiar to upper management.
The result? Top talent is leaving. Morale is plummeting. And FirstEnergy is hemorrhaging credibility in an industry that desperately needs innovation, not nostalgia.
Tierney may think he's bringing discipline and structure, but what he's really bringing is rigidity, stagnation, and a complete disconnect from the people doing the work.
