Posted on 05/21/2017 1:57:15 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
International Business Machines is giving thousands of its remote workers in the U.S. a choice this week: Abandon your home workspaces and relocate to a regional office -- or leave the company.
The 105-year-old technology giant is quietly dismantling its popular decades-old remote work program to bring employees back into offices, a move it says will improve collaboration and accelerate the pace of work.
The changes comes as IBM copes with 20 consecutive quarters of falling revenue and rising shareholder ire over Chief Executive Ginni Rometty's pay package.
The company won't say how many of its 380,000 employees are affected by the policy change, which so far has been rolled out to its Watson division, software development, digital marketing, and design -- divisions that employ tens of thousands of workers.
The shift is particularly surprising since the Armonk, N.Y., company has been among the business world's staunchest boosters of remote work, both for itself and its customers. IBM markets software and services for what it calls "the anytime, anywhere workforce," and its researchers have published numerous studies on the merits of remote work.
In the past, IBM has boasted that more than 40% of employees worked outside traditional company offices, and a May 4 post on the company's Smarter Workforce blog stated that "telework works."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
I work for IBM and almost all of my people are in India.
I worked for an engineering company that did something similar. A few designers (I mean a few) were taking 3 hour lunches on the clock. HR delayed action on this instead of terminating these people post haste, in order to lay the heavy head trip on everyone. No one was allowed to leave the building during lunch. And there was a time limit for travel from one office location to another, and that time limit was not disclosed, people getting docked because of traffic, trains, etc. This is not showing up for work late, this is traveling across Houston for meetings, etc. Add to that the HR rep shows up at meetings lecturing professionals (trying to get project work done at these meetings) like we were all third graders.
I do not see a bright future for that company.
When I worked at a small company (as small as 3 people at times), I got most of my “office” work done at home. PLC programming, CAD drawings, vendor calls and equipment bid evaluations, etc. I only went to the office for meetings and systems testing, plus some wiring work.
Of course I was also a principal at the company.
I’ve worked remote for 15+ years and have always been one the most productive people (measurable) in the companies I’ve worked for
I put in an average of 10-11 hours a day effectively. ...an hour or two commute each day would just be lost time
Lol, I only freep at work when I take a crap. The blessings of owning a tablet.
The industry has moved to a global workforce spread across the world. If people can work across continents, they can work outside a big office. Face to face can be nice sometime, but i disagree with you that means that work from home can’t work.
Bank of America did the same last year. I’m convinced it was a form of attrition.
Agree 100%.
Test
Who puts a printer UNDER the desk? Especially while wielding a cancer stick?
How long would that printer survive, covered in cigarette ashes?
Exactly. C-suite speak with forked tongue.
the vast majority of people lack the discipline to actually work at home
if they don’t work at work, how can they be expected to work at home?
Awesome way to lose talent, IBM. Ask Yahoo!
Complete BS. Work metrics, instant messenger and telephone provide more than adequate surveillance that an employee is carrying his/her load.
My team is scattered throughout the country. Hardly interact with the closest ones. No point in commuting just to spend the day using remote communications anyway. BTW major company.
You’re probably right; this is probably the first step in determining exactly what each person is doing, and looking for cuts afterwards.
A friend works remotely one day each week; depending on the type of work, I’d think few jobs get more productivity with 100% remote work. Some workers just don’t have the discipline to be effective without close supervision.
A friend described a co-worker who had a link from her office PC to a camera in her daughter’s daycare; I couldn’t imagine having someone like that work for me. They aren’t working; they are remotely raising the child.
Yup. Part of the corporate culture of a dying corporation; gutlessness.
Many companies are like IBM. Countries too, for that matter. They start out with developing a new technology for that time, they grow, they may even dominate an industry for a time. But over time, the bureaucracy within the company grows and with it ossification begins to set in. They often are then stuck on their own past success, as was the case with IBM being stuck in mainframe thinking when the PC came on the scene.
These companies become afraid of change and the people within the company, or country, then want to protect the status quo; because they are the status quo. Newer companies come along (Apple, Microsoft) seize the initiative and the market. The old companies like IBM at this point are incapable of adapting to a rapidly changing world. They've reached an apogee and are on decent.
#7 I was at a gas station in downtown Minneapolis in the early 1980’s when I noticed a building across the street with many people coming out as it was noon. The guys all looked the same with white suit and tie. It was a IBM building.
I was hired at ATT in 1998 to a call center for their internet service provider business. You were required to wear a tie even though no one but your co-workers saw you.
I quit for 4 reasons on the 5th day.
1. No parking, you had to drive around and around the block to find a spot. After a year they allowed you to park in the lot....
2. Wearing a tie
3. During our training one of the people asked what the turn over is. A question I never heard of before. The answer was 10% a month!
4. I was hired at another job for $1.50/hr more : )
That job eventually turned into the one I got now and I am making nearly 3 times more money.
I do not wear a tie either!
Just casual clothes and on Friday I get to wear jeans!
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