Posted on 01/19/2024 11:30:57 AM PST by ShadowAce
IBM Consulting this week told its US-based executives and people managers that, effective immediately, they must work from a corporate office at least three days per week, or face the consequences.
John Granger, SVP of IBM Consulting, told staff in an email this is a company-wide policy that extends beyond the Consulting division. He issued a similar, if less emphatic, memo in 2022 that called for being in the workplace three days per week, "wherever possible," and exempted those designated as "work-at-home" employees from the office or client-site attendance.
The email sent this week, however, tells those affected that they should "separate from IBM" if they don't wish to comply.
IBM Software issued a similar directive in September 2023, and at the time, we're told, the Consulting group expected to implement the policy at a later date. That day has now arrived.
Big Blue's antipathy toward remote work predates the workplace exodus precipitated by the COVID pandemic. Back in 2017, IBM tried to end telecommuting by telling workers they had to work from one of six strategic offices, a policy some employees saw as an attempt to drive older workers out.
An IBM employee who spoke with The Register, and asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, described the enforced return-to-office policy as "attrition by design," noting that the IT giant would have to spend some money to relocate and promote lower-band (younger) employees but would save money overall by shedding more experienced, more expensive workers.
Our source also noted that Big Blue is ordering people back to the office at a time when the venerable employer is closing regional hubs.
"Winning in the marketplace demands our collective focus and alignment on innovation, speed, and execution," Granger's note states. "We believe alignment includes face-to-face interaction as it drives the engagement, productivity, and the culture we need to bring world-class client services and products to market."
That belief about productivity may be misplaced. According to economic research published earlier this week by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, remote work has no significant effect on productivity.
"After controlling for pre-pandemic trends in industry productivity growth rates, we find little statistical relationship between telework and pandemic productivity performance," the study says.
"We conclude that the shift to remote work, on its own, is unlikely to be a major factor explaining differences across sectors in productivity performance. By extension, despite the important social and cultural effects of increased telework, the shift is unlikely to be a major factor explaining changes in aggregate productivity."
Part of the problem for managers is that many lack ways to assess the productivity of remote workers.
They also lack a way to assess office occupancy. According to our IBM source, Big Blue's team can tell when employees arrive by the time they swipe their badges through building security systems. But there's no badge swipe upon exit, so there's nothing to prevent workers from showing up and then departing shortly thereafter.
Be that as it may, IBM Consulting is moving ahead with its plan, requiring executives and people managers to "immediately begin working from a client location or an IBM office" at least three days each week, unless eligible for exceptions like medical conditions or military service.
Those who are currently not working from an office or client site must relocate by August 1 so that they can work on-prem, or to shift to a related role outside IBM Consulting for a position that's approved for remote work, or to simply leave the biz.
Granger's note, also shared here on social media, says executives and people managers who will be required to relocate will be informed of this by the end of January 2024, and will then have 30 days to decide if they are willing to make the move.
It's perhaps worth noting that insiders sometimes say IBM stands for I've Been Moved.
Asked to comment, an IBM spokesperson told The Register, "IBM is focused on providing a work environment that balances flexibility with the face to face interactions that make us more productive, innovative and better able to serve our clients. Consistent with that approach, we’re requiring executives and people managers in the United States to be in the office at least three days per week."
Those affected by the policy appear to be less enthusiastic. In a post to LinkedIn, Tony Moura, IBM Federal Garage Lead, said, "So, I'll drive to an office that's 30 minutes away, incur the cost for tolls which will equal $11.25 for the day, and lunch. Just to sit with no one that is on my team because they're all over the country to simply do what I'm doing right now." ®
Different businesses, different cultures, different results from remote work.
My wife’s BF works for SafeLite. They went from a call center to all remote during COVID. After COVID they decided to sell the call center and stay all remote. Funny thing, once the employees knew they weren’t going to go back to an office, productivity plummeted.
Sandra (the wife’s friend) said that these threatening emails went out to everyone about productivity and number of times one can take a break while on the clock. At first they wanted permission to access the employee’s cameras on their computers. That didn’t go over well, so they went with software that just monitors their activity. Then the employees discovered that the software is basically never off so they switched to something that ONLY monitors the employees while they are logged onto the company system. The whole thing was a mess.
The latest word is that they really aren’t saving a whole lot of money with the remote employees and are once again looking for a physical location for a call center.
I was an engineering manager who had employees who did it.
This is a way to get people to quit and/or a way to hide a glut of rented, expensive office space.
lol it depends, how is my supervisor who lives in iowa is suppose to give me a better accurate picture performance when i live in virginia?
i push the same button to deploy codes that i wrote for myself so i can do my one week work in 10 hours at home
when i go to work, I’m the only person in virginia from my dept, in a big empty room. i don’t even have to work that hard at work as i would walk around and visit other dept to get away from my empty room, my team status can stay yellow all day.
at home, the team status have to be actively green, so i actually do some “work” having to jiggle my mouse every 5 minutes.
“My wife’s BF works for SafeLi”
No offense dude but when I first read this I though my wife’s boyfriend! :)
the reality is some job can’t be done at work and that’s fine.
for my case, i just need a pc and i can work anywhere, heck i was even thinking about taking a vacation while working.
or try to get another job that let me work from home, imagine an employee who secretly works from BoA and Citibank at the same time. it is possible.
Ah... your company hired some crappy people who took advantage of crappy leadership and that makes teleworking a bad thing for everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Makes perfect sense to me....
IBM has been doing bloodletting cuts to senior staff since Watson was riding the elevator..
Quote: “ I don’t care what any of these telecommuting workers say. They do not work as much at home as they would have to actually at a workplace, period.”
That is in the money. But so is this. They (corporate America) hopped on the Covid bandwagon. They loved it and hopped on it. They opened the bottle and now want to pretend that they can stiff the Genie back in it. They can’t. They will lose the best and keep the worst.
Good luck with “back to the office”.
Remote workers can be pushed to deliver no differently than on-site. The main difference is making TEAMS gel, especially with new hires, and especially especially(!) with new hires that are fresh graduates. The latter often need some supervision, along with making sure they learn good, professional, practices and behaviors.
Seasoned pro’s can be given tasks and delivery dates, then be trusted to meet them. It usually becomes clear if one of them is a problem. We do lots of face to face webex style meetings. I’d argue the main instance where you need to be together is white-board brainstorming, when it isn’t clear what is needed to be done or how to go about it.
We had a policy of 3 days in the office, Wednesday required. It’s usually enough for such sessions to happen.
These are great, but that’s not a college course.
Testing and evaluation, networking, in person communications, tutoring, help by the instructor, labs are all not possible or reduced severely in their effectiveness with on-line.
Part of a college class are the debates, the off record communications with an instructor that dispenses personal experience which runs contrary to what’s in a textbook... With most of these online classes the instructors are basically handed a complete course and told what to do say with little to no input by them. They are a highly qualified presenter and no more. Also, the lack of physical interaction face to face is a concern since people need that.
Technology can be great. But trying to use it beyond its actual effective limit doesn’t work well.
“I don’t care what any of these telecommuting workers say. They do not work as much at home as they would have to actually at a workplace, period.”
If by ‘work’ you mean to include hours of pointless meetings, three hour lunches, getting harassed by management, getting monitored by the Diversity Gestapo, printing things that don’t need to be printed, filing things that don’t need to be filed, and etc. then I agree.
You left out forced diversity training by HR and more if you’re a federal contractor.
That’s insulting. My wife works 9 to 10 hours a day from home. She accomplishes more in one day what others can’t do in a week. She manages dozens of employees around the world and is responsible for millions in revenue.
Apologize!
“You left out forced diversity training by HR and more if you’re a federal contractor.”
Who is forcing the contractors to attend indoctrination classes? The Feds or the contracting firm?
You’re wrong.
That may be true in some cases. But in other cases many get more done at home.
You’re wrong.
You must be a pointy-haired boss.
Governor Hottie!
Yep. As they shrank cubicles and cubicle walls down, you had people sharing more illness and noise (distraction) keeps getting worse, with no high cube walls you’re constantly seeing movement (distractions) that isn’t useful, which takes away focus and makes it harder to concentrate.
These people seem to think like the current workplace is some kind of quiet calm library type of place with the best attributes for getting work done.
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