A theory among some employees is that IBM is using co-location as a downsizing effort.
I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice.
Like Best Buy and Yahoo at the points at which they decided to co-locate, IBM is a business that needs to do something new.
Our businesses are shrinking, so let's try something new: make our employees less productive.
Despite the positive spin the writer puts on the plan, to me it seems like the death throes of past-their-prime companies.
And based on what others have said in these comments, the change is mostly affecting marketing employees.
I'd say co-location is a pet tactic of the writer, without any real evidence that remote work is anything but progress.
If a job can be done remotely, it should be done remotely.
It's the best way to get a large amount of your workforce to leave voluntarily. No workforce reduction paperwork. No severance packages. Yahoo did it. Nokia did it. In fact, the companies who pull this trick are almost all shrinking and past their prime.
But don't worry, IBM has tens of thousands of strap hangers who've been surviving layoffs for decades.
The bottom line will get brighter. The future of the company will get darker. It's the Jack Welch school of management.
"'A theory among some employees is that IBM is using co-location as a downsizing effort.'
"I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice."
That's the way downsizing always works. The most productive employees will have an easier time finding new jobs, and will move on as soon as the company admits it is in trouble.
Driving off the most productive, most motivated employees is what IBM has spent the last decade and more doing. It doesn't want people who can get jobs elsewhere: it wants people who are too scared to leave.
I am not sure it is all bad. So the best leave which is bad, but you don't have to pay their wages anymore which is good (and if you don't make enough money it's the only option).
The not-that-good stay, but you force them to be in the office, which is bad. But being in the office will turn these not-that-good into gets-the-job-done (I've seen 4-5 developers hunch over a trivial problem but, in the end, they solved it) and since you already have the product built and maybe you just adapt it, that is all you need.
Yeah pretty telling that they are following in the footsteps of Best Buy and Yahoo. Two companies that no one considers leaders in the innovation space right now.
> Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice.
Downsizing this way means people with kids or other obligations that make controlling your own schedule convenient are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice.
Disclosure: I'm a developer at IBM, but not speaking in official capacity. The comment here is completely personal.
I went through this article and it seems like a lot of FUD. The line to note is:
> Though not every department at IBM will be asked to colocate, many will.
So yes, some departments have been "asked" to colocate. However, AFAIK nobody is being "forced". My team lead was asked to colocate but decided to stay where they are because of personal reasons (family).
Speaking generally, I've had incredibly flexible hours, more so than at any other place I've worked so far (and I have worked at some of the "hip" places).
Anyways, the headline itself seems truly sensationalist.
I may be proven wrong, in which case I'll be looking for another job. But agreed, as far as I can see, at least regarding technical employees this is FUD.
My mom works for IBM (and has for ages) and it really seems like this is more a way for them to shed some workers without layoffs because the completely arbitrary nature of who is getting the ultimatum to move to the nearest office.
To me, the fact that IBM has for years encouraged remote work, been affirmatively OK with people moving hundreds, even thousands of miles from their nearest co-location center to then yanking this policy and forcing employees to decide whether to move in a short amount of time makes this, in my mind, a thinly-veiled downsizing effort.
Imagine; for years, your department in is NY state, but you've been told it's totally cool to move to Colorado and work from home. In fact, IBM exclaims how it's good for the company because it saves space and money! You build your family's life there, then all the sudden - you have a month to decide to relocate to NY state (sell your house, change your kids' school, etc) or quit with a measly package. They won't even allow you to go to the nearby IBM office in Colorado because your group is based in NY state.
I know employment is at-will, and what IBM is doing is perfectly legal. It doesn't mean it doesn't stink.
Yep... I know people who were affected in the same way you described -- encouraged to work remotely, so they bought houses in other states years ago, and then told 3 months in advance that they would need to return to the office. Of the people I know, one chose retirement, a few chose to leave, one chose to relocate, one was allowed to stay remote.
> Peluso, formerly the CEO of fashion startup Gilt, explained the “only one recipe I know for success.” Its ingredients included great people, the right tools, a mission, analysis of results, and one more thing: “really creative and inspiring locations.”
That must be the same secret recipe that quartered[1] GILT's value in less than 10 years!
This isn't universal - a good friend of mine works for a team that is getting shipped off to IBM as part of a merger, and told to apply for the new IBM jobs if they want to keep working there. Ignoring the ugliness of that situation for the moment, he specifically asked about this news of remote work ending as it relates to how coding jobs would be impacted, and was told that the jobs he was applying for were intended to remain remote.
All the news I have seen has been about the marketing team, and my story is just one team, so I have no real idea what the big picture is, but it seems to be more nuanced than what we are reading about in the news.
Every time I've found myself needing to ask, or had teammates who needed to ask the question "Is my job safe beyond the next month?" the answer has been "no."
Marissa Mayer did the same thing shortly after getting to Yahoo. I think the results there speak for themselves. There's never a case where a move like this will boost morale or attract/keep top talent. IMO moves like this are all about showing dominance and being a "person of action." It's corporate politics showmanship at the expense of results.
Remember, though, Marissa's move came because a very large number of Yahoo remote employees weren't working. I went through something similar at Intel about 10 years ago when "telecommuting" became a code word for not really doing any work.
I don't think IBM is in the same situation, though. Telecommuting works or fails based on a company's culture, work ethic, and employee accountability.
I am remote, and have been for the last 3.5 yrs. As a software developer I find that the times I am least productive are when I need to work in an office. It is loud and distractions are everywhere. People stop by your desk to chat and ask for things, you inevitably get roped into ping-pong or foosball games, you take way longer lunches because that is what everyone else seems to be doing. The list goes on.
I am always glad to get home from the office so I can focus and get work done in peace. It may not be the case for all roles, but for software development I think (motivated and diligent) remote workers are way more productive, and can provide a much better ROI for their employers.
It worked out ever so well for Yahoo when Mayer did it so surely it'll work for IBM who has two orders of magnitude more employees...actually, perhaps the end goal is voluntary resignations?
I haven't worked for them, but I work with 2 former IBM Engineers in Austin... both of them say the same weird things.. like, you can't get two monitors (when one asked, he was declined, then his boss pulled an old CRT out of a closet and gave it too him... a 640x480 CRT from what must have been 184 years ago) ... And other weird tales that just seem antithetical to a tech company..
IBM isn't a tech company. It's a brand with an impressive marketing department that sells experiences, not products. The rest of it (the stuff you don't see unless you get close enough) is an accumulation of spaghetti acquired in an ad hoc and aimless fashion.
IBM is beyond weird. Source: I spent about 14 of the past 20 years there (as a contractor) in the Global Services division. But for all the weirdness, and downright idiocy at times, they were always truly supportive of working from home. None of those funny remarks or anything either with coworkers. At least in the teams I have worked in, everybody was always valued on output, not "visibility" or any of that typical business bullshitbingo. Of course, speaking from a technical role. Seen plenty of classic behaviour in management.
Having said that, I could write books about the complete Twilight Zone that is IBM Services. Don't worry, I'll stick with writing invoices in stead ;)
I have known many people who work in companies like Oracle, IBM etc where there is consulting at client location and then report at designated office. Generally reporting at designated office is very lax and people either are at client site or just stay at home. I wonder if tightening remote work requirement is for these people too.
Lately at traditional IT companies even temporarily non-billable resources are increasingly being scrutinized for their output.
Remote work has many benefits, but it's not all upside. Possibly IBM saw the successes they had by co-locating the Watson, Marketing and Health squads compared and decided there was a lot of productivity being lost.
When I went to sign up for Watson's API services, I had to allow for third party cookies just to enter my payment information. It was a pain just trying to dig through Chrome to allow this, but I wonder how many of their potential customers just punt on that point alone.
For one of their flagship products, it's been an average experience at best.
I use to think that remote work was goal I should be aiming for but after have a few friends did it and I thought more about it I've decided I would hate it. On the surface it sounds great and while I fully support working from home a few times a month I can't support any more than that.
One of my good friends that did it has an interesting take, he said that since he was more introverted he thought he was perfect for remote work when in fact it made him miserable. His dad worked remotely for a large part of his life but was an extrovert. He concluded that contrary to what may seem like common sense introverts do worse in remote work because the office is where they get a majority of their human interaction while extroverts are going to make that happen regardless of if they go into an office every day.
I have no experience with working from home for a long period of time but I know calling into meetings is the worst and that there are a TON of decisions/conversations that you get ZERO input on (most of the time you don't even know they happened) when you are remote. I have never been so happy that I didn't get a remote job I interviewed for a few years ago.
As much as I hate companies giving a perk and then taking it away I can't help but think this is the right move for IBM.
PS: Yes HipChat/Slack/Jira/GitLab/GitHub/etc/etc/etc can help with this but you are fooling yourself if you think that the people in the office are going to record every single interaction/conversation/etc of note. Remote-only teams might be an exception but even then you really do lose the ability to roll over to co-workers chair and have an impromptu conversation.
It's easy to forget that IBM is in the share buyback business. They're not a growing technology power. They have Watson, which isn't enough to save them. They can't invest money wisely, so every year they cut headcount and return some money to shareholders. It's the orderly returning of money to shareholders from a company that doesn't need investment anymore.
So why should this company offer perks to compete with Google or a startup? They only need a shrinking subset of lifers to keep the lights on.
If you want to telecommute, find a place that specializes in it.
What I find a bit odd is that this is ostensibly about becoming more innovative.
But does anyone really believe that major strategic business and product innovation occurs at the level of the individual contributors and teams who will be affected by this change?
I mean, sure, cool new features happen at that level, but you can't tell me the iPhone would've fallen out of a "water cooler" conversation between a couple of C++ devs on a Wednesday afternoon in the office.
> I mean, sure, cool new features happen at that level, but you can't tell me the iPhone would've fallen out of a "water cooler" conversation between a couple of C++ devs on a Wednesday afternoon in the office.
I think you are severely discounting the advantages of having people nearby/ in the same office. I'm not against working remotely, but personally do prefer a mix between working in the office and WFH. Its a lot easier to whiteboard designs and explain concepts. Its easy to ask a question and get an answer. There's also the other aspect of building a shared culture and getting to know your coworkers. That promotes a sense of comraderie so that when e.g. someone on the team has to take time off, there is a deadline for a deliverable or there is a service outage, the team works much more quickly and cohesively to solve problems. This also allows a better division of labor and I've seen this lead to many innovations as one person on the team focuses exclusively for a small time on solving a problem.
> In a video message, Peluso, formerly the CEO of fashion startup Gilt, explained the “only one recipe I know for success.” Its ingredients included great people, the right tools, a mission, analysis of results, and one more thing: “really creative and inspiring locations.”
Why is this news coming from the CMO? Anyone know?
Main reason is downsizing, easiest way to thin the herd. At that size, HR is just a spreadsheet exercise, quality of the individual employees does not factor in.
Of course this will not affect their "remote" workforce in India, this is about the high-pay western markets.
[+] [-] padobson|9 years ago|reply
I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice.
Like Best Buy and Yahoo at the points at which they decided to co-locate, IBM is a business that needs to do something new.
Our businesses are shrinking, so let's try something new: make our employees less productive.
Despite the positive spin the writer puts on the plan, to me it seems like the death throes of past-their-prime companies.
And based on what others have said in these comments, the change is mostly affecting marketing employees.
I'd say co-location is a pet tactic of the writer, without any real evidence that remote work is anything but progress.
If a job can be done remotely, it should be done remotely.
[+] [-] spcelzrd|9 years ago|reply
But don't worry, IBM has tens of thousands of strap hangers who've been surviving layoffs for decades.
The bottom line will get brighter. The future of the company will get darker. It's the Jack Welch school of management.
[+] [-] mcguire|9 years ago|reply
"I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice."
That's the way downsizing always works. The most productive employees will have an easier time finding new jobs, and will move on as soon as the company admits it is in trouble.
[+] [-] zeveb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GoToRO|9 years ago|reply
The not-that-good stay, but you force them to be in the office, which is bad. But being in the office will turn these not-that-good into gets-the-job-done (I've seen 4-5 developers hunch over a trivial problem but, in the end, they solved it) and since you already have the product built and maybe you just adapt it, that is all you need.
[+] [-] cracell|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wcummings|9 years ago|reply
Downsizing this way means people with kids or other obligations that make controlling your own schedule convenient are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice.
FTFY.
[+] [-] pm90|9 years ago|reply
I went through this article and it seems like a lot of FUD. The line to note is:
> Though not every department at IBM will be asked to colocate, many will.
So yes, some departments have been "asked" to colocate. However, AFAIK nobody is being "forced". My team lead was asked to colocate but decided to stay where they are because of personal reasons (family).
Speaking generally, I've had incredibly flexible hours, more so than at any other place I've worked so far (and I have worked at some of the "hip" places).
Anyways, the headline itself seems truly sensationalist.
[+] [-] danso|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mds|9 years ago|reply
Are there any technical IBM employees here who have been "forced" to relocate?
This post and all others I've seen are just rewrites of the original (unsourced) article last month in The Register (https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/09/ibm_workfromhome_cu...) with no additional facts or updates.
I may be proven wrong, in which case I'll be looking for another job. But agreed, as far as I can see, at least regarding technical employees this is FUD.
[+] [-] rtkwe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigmattystyles|9 years ago|reply
To me, the fact that IBM has for years encouraged remote work, been affirmatively OK with people moving hundreds, even thousands of miles from their nearest co-location center to then yanking this policy and forcing employees to decide whether to move in a short amount of time makes this, in my mind, a thinly-veiled downsizing effort.
Imagine; for years, your department in is NY state, but you've been told it's totally cool to move to Colorado and work from home. In fact, IBM exclaims how it's good for the company because it saves space and money! You build your family's life there, then all the sudden - you have a month to decide to relocate to NY state (sell your house, change your kids' school, etc) or quit with a measly package. They won't even allow you to go to the nearby IBM office in Colorado because your group is based in NY state.
I know employment is at-will, and what IBM is doing is perfectly legal. It doesn't mean it doesn't stink.
[+] [-] jps359|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justin66|9 years ago|reply
Is that actually happening to you? pm90 below indicated that IBM wasn't doing this.
[+] [-] andrenotgiant|9 years ago|reply
That must be the same secret recipe that quartered[1] GILT's value in less than 10 years!
[1] Gilt Groupe at one point valued at $1B, sold to HBC for $250M - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilt_Groupe
[+] [-] codingdave|9 years ago|reply
All the news I have seen has been about the marketing team, and my story is just one team, so I have no real idea what the big picture is, but it seems to be more nuanced than what we are reading about in the news.
[+] [-] simpleProMan123|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rch|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hubb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alistproducer2|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gwbas1c|9 years ago|reply
I don't think IBM is in the same situation, though. Telecommuting works or fails based on a company's culture, work ethic, and employee accountability.
[+] [-] devopsproject|9 years ago|reply
151% stock increase? Nearly double market cap?
[+] [-] al2o3cr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] talawahdotnet|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archeantus|9 years ago|reply
I am always glad to get home from the office so I can focus and get work done in peace. It may not be the case for all roles, but for software development I think (motivated and diligent) remote workers are way more productive, and can provide a much better ROI for their employers.
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brational|9 years ago|reply
That's the only explanation that makes sense.
[+] [-] jmcdiesel|9 years ago|reply
I haven't worked for them, but I work with 2 former IBM Engineers in Austin... both of them say the same weird things.. like, you can't get two monitors (when one asked, he was declined, then his boss pulled an old CRT out of a closet and gave it too him... a 640x480 CRT from what must have been 184 years ago) ... And other weird tales that just seem antithetical to a tech company..
[+] [-] krona|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mvdwoord|9 years ago|reply
Having said that, I could write books about the complete Twilight Zone that is IBM Services. Don't worry, I'll stick with writing invoices in stead ;)
[+] [-] jps359|9 years ago|reply
Worth keeping in mind that this is the new policy as of about a year ago (they changed it before the big waves of layoffs last year).
Before the change you would get a week for every 6 months worked, up to 23 weeks.
[+] [-] geodel|9 years ago|reply
Lately at traditional IT companies even temporarily non-billable resources are increasingly being scrutinized for their output.
[+] [-] redm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aantix|9 years ago|reply
For one of their flagship products, it's been an average experience at best.
[+] [-] joshstrange|9 years ago|reply
One of my good friends that did it has an interesting take, he said that since he was more introverted he thought he was perfect for remote work when in fact it made him miserable. His dad worked remotely for a large part of his life but was an extrovert. He concluded that contrary to what may seem like common sense introverts do worse in remote work because the office is where they get a majority of their human interaction while extroverts are going to make that happen regardless of if they go into an office every day.
I have no experience with working from home for a long period of time but I know calling into meetings is the worst and that there are a TON of decisions/conversations that you get ZERO input on (most of the time you don't even know they happened) when you are remote. I have never been so happy that I didn't get a remote job I interviewed for a few years ago.
As much as I hate companies giving a perk and then taking it away I can't help but think this is the right move for IBM.
PS: Yes HipChat/Slack/Jira/GitLab/GitHub/etc/etc/etc can help with this but you are fooling yourself if you think that the people in the office are going to record every single interaction/conversation/etc of note. Remote-only teams might be an exception but even then you really do lose the ability to roll over to co-workers chair and have an impromptu conversation.
[+] [-] mathattack|9 years ago|reply
So why should this company offer perks to compete with Google or a startup? They only need a shrinking subset of lifers to keep the lights on.
If you want to telecommute, find a place that specializes in it.
[+] [-] zzalpha|9 years ago|reply
But does anyone really believe that major strategic business and product innovation occurs at the level of the individual contributors and teams who will be affected by this change?
I mean, sure, cool new features happen at that level, but you can't tell me the iPhone would've fallen out of a "water cooler" conversation between a couple of C++ devs on a Wednesday afternoon in the office.
[+] [-] pm90|9 years ago|reply
I think you are severely discounting the advantages of having people nearby/ in the same office. I'm not against working remotely, but personally do prefer a mix between working in the office and WFH. Its a lot easier to whiteboard designs and explain concepts. Its easy to ask a question and get an answer. There's also the other aspect of building a shared culture and getting to know your coworkers. That promotes a sense of comraderie so that when e.g. someone on the team has to take time off, there is a deadline for a deliverable or there is a service outage, the team works much more quickly and cohesively to solve problems. This also allows a better division of labor and I've seen this lead to many innovations as one person on the team focuses exclusively for a small time on solving a problem.
[+] [-] dbg31415|9 years ago|reply
Why is this news coming from the CMO? Anyone know?
[+] [-] pinaceae|9 years ago|reply
Main reason is downsizing, easiest way to thin the herd. At that size, HR is just a spreadsheet exercise, quality of the individual employees does not factor in.
Of course this will not affect their "remote" workforce in India, this is about the high-pay western markets.
[+] [-] snockerton|9 years ago|reply
https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job