IBM, a Pioneer of Remote Work, Calls Workers Back to the Office(wsj.com)
wsj.com
IBM, a Pioneer of Remote Work, Calls Workers Back to the Office
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-a-pioneer-of-remote-work-calls-workers-back-to-the-office-1495108802
67 comments
> It’s unlikely that IBM employees, as they centralize in office hubs, will reap the lavish office benefits and constant supply of free gourmet food that companies like Facebook and Google use to keep employees on-site. They won’t even receive raises after moving to expensive cities like San Francisco and New York.
If it's true that they won't offer any COL adjustment for folks headed to SF or NY, then that would support the view that it's meant to reduce headcount.
If it's true that they won't offer any COL adjustment for folks headed to SF or NY, then that would support the view that it's meant to reduce headcount.
They do not offer COL adjustment. Also no guarantees that you will not have to subsequently relocate to another location
I used to know IBM'ers who said it stood for "I Be Moving"
I'm glad I live in a country where such a change would constitute constructive dismissal.
With IBM, one can't help but feel this is a tactic to force layoffs without having to actually do a layoff. I believe they tried similar tactics in their Global Business Services division in the mid-2000s.
Of course it's a layoff. It's the same thing yahoo did. When business are doing well they don't force their employees into impossible situations.
Yahoo's policy affected about 180 people. That's about 1.5% of the company. Of those 180, about 60 were allowed to WFH. "Firing" 120 people in such a convoluted way is stupid. But the Internet continues to believe in stupider things, so who am I to ask.
Didn't Yahoo look at their VPN logs and notice people literally weren't doing any work?
Yes. Most people forget these details and just hate on "Oh noes! Working from home was banned!!".
Why is "stupid" for businesses to attempt to coerce employees to quit rather than to fire them? Evil, or assholish sure, but I don't think its stupid.
If they had layoffs they would have to deal with unemployment payments. They might have to deal with lawsuits. Dpending on laws they might even need to rehire some of them. They will certainly have higher short term expenses than if a bunch of people choose to leave.
If they do get rid of a bunch of people who choose to leave they are also getting rid of people who least wanted to stay, which some might see as a benefit. I don't think this is a good way to decide but I have heard much more stupid logic than this.
If they had layoffs they would have to deal with unemployment payments. They might have to deal with lawsuits. Dpending on laws they might even need to rehire some of them. They will certainly have higher short term expenses than if a bunch of people choose to leave.
If they do get rid of a bunch of people who choose to leave they are also getting rid of people who least wanted to stay, which some might see as a benefit. I don't think this is a good way to decide but I have heard much more stupid logic than this.
Because in the end it was performance based. If your performance was good, you could continue to work from home. So you could have fired the low performers directly (if you wanted to) without going through this whole WFH drama.
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They probably took a good look at the performance of people onsite vs. offsite and noticed an issue and decided to act on it.
I view this move as a life lesson since they will most likely do their best to retain remote workers that are in-line or above when it comes to performance.
The rest will need to figure out what they want to do; you can't cry about this if you did not pull your weight.
I view this move as a life lesson since they will most likely do their best to retain remote workers that are in-line or above when it comes to performance.
The rest will need to figure out what they want to do; you can't cry about this if you did not pull your weight.
First they took free tea and coffee in the office (http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/apr/15bcrisis-no-more-free-...) now they are taking away WFH.
There are fewer and fewer incentives to work for IBM.
There are fewer and fewer incentives to work for IBM.
TIL that some people chose to work at IBM because of the free tea and coffee
Despite the fact that I usually bring my coffee from home, or go to a local shop, the fact that a company offers free coffee/snacks/etc matters from a perspective.
If a company is going to nickel and dime you, charge you $0.25 for a coffee or force you to provide your own... they probably are going to be cheap in other places as well. If they aren't willing to give you coffee or seltzer, they are hardly going to give you good hardware or software - which is something that does affect me.
That being said, that only goes so far. I don't really care about free lunches, or if a company has some game console. I mostly just don't want to work for a company that is going to nickel and dime me because it means they're cheapskates.
If a company is going to nickel and dime you, charge you $0.25 for a coffee or force you to provide your own... they probably are going to be cheap in other places as well. If they aren't willing to give you coffee or seltzer, they are hardly going to give you good hardware or software - which is something that does affect me.
That being said, that only goes so far. I don't really care about free lunches, or if a company has some game console. I mostly just don't want to work for a company that is going to nickel and dime me because it means they're cheapskates.
Free lunches are a startup-culture thing, for the most part. Game consoles, likewise. I don't need toys to play with at work, or my food paid for - I'm a grownup, and I can deal.
Free coffee isn't really in the same realm. The most enterprisey places I've ever worked have still offered it, not because they felt like being sweethearts, but because it makes hard economic sense - people will drink coffee, and at modern professional salaries, having them spend their paid time dealing directly with all the ancillaries around it is quite literally more expensive than just buying coffee and maintaining the equipment involved. Dropping it is thus penny wise, pound foolish.
Free coffee isn't really in the same realm. The most enterprisey places I've ever worked have still offered it, not because they felt like being sweethearts, but because it makes hard economic sense - people will drink coffee, and at modern professional salaries, having them spend their paid time dealing directly with all the ancillaries around it is quite literally more expensive than just buying coffee and maintaining the equipment involved. Dropping it is thus penny wise, pound foolish.
I was at Cisco when free drinks vanished. It's a really big hit to moral. You feel like the company is hurting and wonder what else is coming. I agree with you entirely...it's almost less about the actual offering and more the feeling of a nice thing going away for a small cost savings.
The brown M&Ms of tech employment.
That's not what he said. The point was, IBM is taking away every fringe benefit, making them less competitive. Amazon is notorious for its frugality, but at the very least it offers free damn coffee.
This is an argument of all things being equal. If IBM and Microsoft offer me the same package for the same job, but Microsoft offers me free coffee, I'll probably take the coffee.
This is an argument of all things being equal. If IBM and Microsoft offer me the same package for the same job, but Microsoft offers me free coffee, I'll probably take the coffee.
It's the other way around, if all other places offer that as a minimum, why go to a place that is "cheap" in such a way? What would be next, bring your own water or a power generator?
My first job after college was in a small company (now they call them startups) that had 5 people. We worked in an old building, had low end equipment, but we had free coffee and tea (and water).
It costs them next to nothing to have that basic "benefits", yearly it is probably much less then a single travel of any of their chief officers.
If they are so cheap, then they probably won't give you big money for your work (small pay increases, or none) also, for me it is a big warning sign: GET OUT.
My first job after college was in a small company (now they call them startups) that had 5 people. We worked in an old building, had low end equipment, but we had free coffee and tea (and water).
It costs them next to nothing to have that basic "benefits", yearly it is probably much less then a single travel of any of their chief officers.
If they are so cheap, then they probably won't give you big money for your work (small pay increases, or none) also, for me it is a big warning sign: GET OUT.
I won't (quite) outright refuse to work somewhere because they don't offer free coffee. But it's not a good sign they're somewhere I want to work, if they can't or won't manage table stakes.
It reads like Warning Signs Of Corporate Doom [0]. In case of one company I worked for it was pretty spot on.
[0] http://wiki.c2.com/?WarningSignsOfCorporateDoom
[0] http://wiki.c2.com/?WarningSignsOfCorporateDoom
At least as of 1990, at one large IBM location in the US there were regular vending stations for coffee and tea. Was <50 cents (20 cents, maybe) for a cup of "freshly brewed" coffee. You also needed exact change or lost the difference (the "exact change" light seemed perpetually on). Also there were ashtrays built in to the walls at regular intervals.
Don't know when they started giving away coffee, but it was tried for some years and then stopped apparently. Like remote working.
Don't know when they started giving away coffee, but it was tried for some years and then stopped apparently. Like remote working.
Wow! I'd be seriously worried if my company yanked free coffee and tea. I guess on IBM's scale that turns out to be some real change, but I have to imagine the time spent leaving campus for coffee and all is more expensive overall.
My IBM office didn't have free coffee in 2005.
Hospice recall? When an elderly loved one enters hospice and is unlikely to ever leave, all the family is called back in to gather for their death. Happened with Yahoo a couple years ago. I didn't realize IBM was doing so poorly.
That's a great point! I tried out Bluemix and it was soooo bad! I was awestruck as to how a company as big as IBM could create something so hacked together. Amazon literally paved the way for cloud services, all they had to do was copy them.
I mean, just visit the IBM website. Try to figure out what it is they actually do. It's ridiculous. I have no idea WTF any of their services are.
I mean, just visit the IBM website. Try to figure out what it is they actually do. It's ridiculous. I have no idea WTF any of their services are.
Well, Warren Buffet just (partially) divested.
Having worked for both small startups and large corporations, I fully understand why remote work doesn't make sense for large companies.
Large companies have a lot of trouble keeping track of what their employees are doing even when they are in the office.
I've worked for a couple of large companies where some employees came into the office everyday but did essentially nothing and no one really cared. If those same employees had the opportunity to work remotely, then they might actually have fun on company time - They could even take up a second "full time job" which also allows them to do nothing and they would get two paychecks for doing nothing.
It's actually not difficult to put yourself into a position within some big companies where everyone forgets you exist but you still get a paycheck.
There are some big companies where employees make quotation signs with their fingers when saying the phrase 'He/she is "working from home" today' whilst chuckling among each other.
For employees to be motivated to work from home, they need to be able to see clearly how their work affects the company and their career path - Unfortunately big companies don't offer enough accountability for this to happen.
I've worked for a couple of large companies where some employees came into the office everyday but did essentially nothing and no one really cared. If those same employees had the opportunity to work remotely, then they might actually have fun on company time - They could even take up a second "full time job" which also allows them to do nothing and they would get two paychecks for doing nothing.
It's actually not difficult to put yourself into a position within some big companies where everyone forgets you exist but you still get a paycheck.
There are some big companies where employees make quotation signs with their fingers when saying the phrase 'He/she is "working from home" today' whilst chuckling among each other.
For employees to be motivated to work from home, they need to be able to see clearly how their work affects the company and their career path - Unfortunately big companies don't offer enough accountability for this to happen.
I can see where big companies are coming from with wanting the people they pay to do work, but if you can't tell if that's happening when they work remotely why would you be able to tell if its happening when they are in the office. The only thing they can tell accurately now is that people are in their cubes/seat/open office plan. They'd be better off coming up with some way to evaluate the output of their employees if this was really about that. However I am of the opinion that this is just layoffs with a different name, and that's why you don't see an effort to actually evaluate output.
It's about incentives. If your employees know that they're stuck in the office all day, they have fewer options; their non-work activities are limited to browsing Facebook, reading blogs and looking at cat pictures - They can either do those things or actually do work.
If they're at home they can play computer games, go out, watch a movie, etc...
If they're at home they can play computer games, go out, watch a movie, etc...
> It's about incentives.
I see being allowed to work from home as a sign of respect and confidence. Therefor I return that respect by not fucking with said opportunity.
Given the ability to schedule in chores or a bit of fun during breaks, my breaks become far more productive.
When I get stuck or something or am blocking on someone at work, I tend to browse hackernews, some forums, ... You end up with activities that draw you in more and more, potentially wasting hours without really having the refreshing effect you need breaks to have.
When I'm at home, I get up and vacuum a couple of rooms, clean the kitchen or maybe even skip out an hour to work out when the gym's calm to help clear my mind. I'm confident in saying my days spent working from home are by far the most productive of my entire week.
> If they're at home they can play computer games, go out, watch a movie, etc... Someone like that can just as well be expected to spend their entire days scrolling through cat pictures. Don't hire someone you think you can't trust working from home, they won't fare much better on-site.
I see being allowed to work from home as a sign of respect and confidence. Therefor I return that respect by not fucking with said opportunity.
Given the ability to schedule in chores or a bit of fun during breaks, my breaks become far more productive.
When I get stuck or something or am blocking on someone at work, I tend to browse hackernews, some forums, ... You end up with activities that draw you in more and more, potentially wasting hours without really having the refreshing effect you need breaks to have.
When I'm at home, I get up and vacuum a couple of rooms, clean the kitchen or maybe even skip out an hour to work out when the gym's calm to help clear my mind. I'm confident in saying my days spent working from home are by far the most productive of my entire week.
> If they're at home they can play computer games, go out, watch a movie, etc... Someone like that can just as well be expected to spend their entire days scrolling through cat pictures. Don't hire someone you think you can't trust working from home, they won't fare much better on-site.
I'm the same but unfortunately not everyone is honest. I've met people who went to the beach during office hours and did almost no work. Then they bragged about it.
Right, but that means you have no way of evaluating their output. On the other hand, maybe you are evaluating their output and that employee is still meeting their targets. At that point why do you care if they can fuck off half the day and get the same work done, if you aren't going to offer a pay increase?
In a big company (particularly in highly regulated industries) it can get very difficult to measure employee output because quite often an employee may be blocked from completing a task because of regulatory requirements, company policies or scalability considerations - This sometimes forces employees from one team to coordinate with other teams who are working on a project dependency and can lead to busy-waiting.
Sometimes employees can be moved onto other temporary tasks while the other team completes their task/dependency but this causes the employees in the former team to lose focus - Making employees context-switch between too many projects carries a cost which may be higher than just allowing them to busy-wait from time to time.
Sometimes employees can be moved onto other temporary tasks while the other team completes their task/dependency but this causes the employees in the former team to lose focus - Making employees context-switch between too many projects carries a cost which may be higher than just allowing them to busy-wait from time to time.
For most workers, work from home works as long as you don't do it all of the time and never hire an asshole.
I've never seen a team with a big remote work culture that really worked unless it was part of the business where field ops make sense or when most time is interacting with customers.
I've never seen a team with a big remote work culture that really worked unless it was part of the business where field ops make sense or when most time is interacting with customers.
Didn't we have an article on HN last month that said IBM claims remote workers work harder and longer with more loyalty?
We also had an article that said their marketing dept. was killing remote workers.
We also had an article that said their marketing dept. was killing remote workers.
One of them is likely https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291461
IBM is calling its marketing teams back into the offices. Not all remote workers. The marketing teams. At least as far as I, and the people I know who work at IBM, have heard.
Disclosure: I work for IBM on a team impacted by these changes.
As far as I know multiple business units within IBM, including Cloud, Watson, and Watson IoT have gone through relocation requests for Design and Engineering roles.
As far as I know multiple business units within IBM, including Cloud, Watson, and Watson IoT have gone through relocation requests for Design and Engineering roles.
Former IBM engineer here, can confirm this has been happening for many job roles over the last year in many divisions
I work for IBM. I can't comment on any specifics of this article or related matters. My statements reflect only my personal opinion and not those of IBM.
I would only say that the scale of IBM operations dwarf other tech companies you might think of as "large", with a headcount around ~380k per the 2016 IBM annual report [1]. Making a concrete, sweeping statement about the values and policies concerning a collection of people this large is a fraught endeavor.
Think about it this way, the population of Seattle (668k) within the same ballpark as IBM. If a friend of yours living in Seattle were to make a blanket statement about some aspect of Seattle, how much would you trust it? And even if your source was WSJ, how precise and to what portion of the population do you think a 900 word article could be relevant? And even if you yourself lived in Seattle, would you feel comfortable making blanket statements about the impact of even something as widely discussed/published as a new law or ordinance?
[1] https://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2016/images/downloads/IBM-A...
I would only say that the scale of IBM operations dwarf other tech companies you might think of as "large", with a headcount around ~380k per the 2016 IBM annual report [1]. Making a concrete, sweeping statement about the values and policies concerning a collection of people this large is a fraught endeavor.
Think about it this way, the population of Seattle (668k) within the same ballpark as IBM. If a friend of yours living in Seattle were to make a blanket statement about some aspect of Seattle, how much would you trust it? And even if your source was WSJ, how precise and to what portion of the population do you think a 900 word article could be relevant? And even if you yourself lived in Seattle, would you feel comfortable making blanket statements about the impact of even something as widely discussed/published as a new law or ordinance?
[1] https://www.ibm.com/annualreport/2016/images/downloads/IBM-A...
A lot of technical teams were given the same requests last year with more or less insistence depending on how much they wanted to retain people on particular projects.
Perhaps in this wave. However, I have an old friend who was recalled last year, and he was technical. He decided to quit, rather than to move.
A lot of people said that they just use that to fire people but isn't that the most counterproductive to do so because most of the good people who do not have trouble finding another job will just quit while the desperate who need the job and cannot find anything comparable will most likely stay.
So wouldn't this hurt the company a lot more in the long run since more talent will be gone and the less talented people will stay. Sure it will reduce the payroll expenses but they should be seeing less revenue rather quickly.
So wouldn't this hurt the company a lot more in the long run since more talent will be gone and the less talented people will stay. Sure it will reduce the payroll expenses but they should be seeing less revenue rather quickly.
MBAs at work. Care only about the financials and never mind the institutional knowledge.
I don't think they really care about the long run. They are burning the furniture to keep warm at this point.
Still, should the investors get upset? Firing a selected group of people is one thing (which many investory see as good) but firing their best people does not sound very smart to them either (and I believe most of them are worried about the long term because they cannot just dump 100k in stocks without affecting their price too much).
My speculation is this is a way to make cuts without firing anyone
Seems more PR-friendly than, "We are doing a round of layoffs..." Cheaper for them too, as they don't have to pay severance. This is all-around skeezy.
I believe this is only for marketing teams
Been hearing about it happening to technical people I know, even when it's clearly bloody stupid.
I've Been Moved
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The normal trick of opening wsj articles in an incognito window is no longer working for me.
Here's a link that worked for me: https://qz.com/924167/ibm-remote-work-pioneer-is-calling-tho...
Both WSJ article and the one I linked to are from March.
Here's a link that worked for me: https://qz.com/924167/ibm-remote-work-pioneer-is-calling-tho...
Both WSJ article and the one I linked to are from March.
Off topic to post, but it's fairly easy to track unique visitors outside of cookies.
You mean unique IP addresses?
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At work so I can't test it but I believe a twitter redirect will still get you past the paywall.
How is that possible? For large companies in really expensive areas especially.
"Relocating offices or asking employees to move can sometimes be read as layoffs in disguise, since a certain percentage of workers won't be able to relocate."
That seems more likely to be the one of the biggest real reasons why they're doing this.