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HP CEO Meg Whitman To Employees: No More Telecommuting For You
McGruber writes "AllThingsD has the news that Hewlett-Packard has enacted a policy requiring most employees to work from the office and not from home. According to an undated question-and-answer document distributed to HP employees, the new policy is aimed at instigating a cultural shift that 'will help create a more connected workforce and drive greater collaboration and innovation.' The memo also said, 'During this critical turnaround period, HP needs all hands on deck. We recognize that in the past, we may have asked certain employees to work from home for various reasons. We now need to build a stronger culture of engagement and collaboration and the more employees we get into the office the better company we will be.' One major complication is that numerous HP offices don't have sufficient space to accommodate all of their employees. According to sources familiar with the company's operations, as many as 80,000 employees, and possibly more, were working from home in part because the company didn't have desks for them all within its own buildings."
This one was aimed at Microsoft, but HP certainly deserves it too.
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Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
This is just typical - they're trying to shed employees, cut staff, make money. That's what the Compaq merger was about. It had nothing to do with computers and had everything to do with Compaqs crappier HR policies which were adopted as HPs, saving the company millions, forever. My wife lost a week and a half of vacation time because of that. Dicks.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Hey Meg,
Just a word of warning; this will not work. If they can't figure out how to communicate with IRC and all the rest of the internet at their fingertips, they're sure as fuck not gonna get along any better when you cram them in a conference room at the ass crack of dawn and shake them up to see if they fight.
Sincerely,
The Whole Motherfucking Internet.
Well as long as HP doesn't try to sell telecommuting to other companies because they obviously don't know how to do it http://www8.hp.com/h20621/video-gallery/us/en/customer-care/computing-and-mobile-devices/network-and-internet/1251324810001/hp-home-office-telecommuting-equipment-basics/video/.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
My wife works for HP (as a telecommuter) and she's pretty high up - and I'm pretty sure this is false. There were rumors of a 'no telecommuting policy' for the last couple of months, but nothing came of it. I'm guessing Meg & Co took heed of the negative feedback on that idea.
I work for HP, many levels below our CEO.
This undated document has not been distributed to employees. Most of us first heard of it today in the tech press. There is no actual *room* at all the HP offices to pull in all the employees. In fact, I understand that back when HP first started pushing telecommuting, they took the opportunity to do the logical thing, and shrink and close most of their field offices.
So, short form, this news isn't news, because it's not a happened, and probably isn't.
The HP Way died on a dark winter's day in 1999, when Bill Hewlett experienced a failure of willpower reminiscent of the fall of Isildur, and failed to drown Carly Fiorina in his swimming pool.
Just when I finally got rid of all my pants.
Oh, so you still think you work for HP?
Meg Whitman - a totally hideous person - mean, small, vindictive - has no ideas of her own, so she's just stealing Marissa Mayer's bad idea. Both are insanely wealthy people who literally have no clue how the proles who work for them actually live their lives. Step by step, the US stumbles toward its own French Revolution, but ours will make the one of 1789 look like a walk in the park.
I worked on a contract at a major telco in the U.S. that had a lot of telecommuting. They were implementing new ordering, billing, provisioning... systems. They had so many issues during that time, mostly because the left hand never knew what the right hand was doing. My impression was it was caused by people not being in the same office or campus. I worked on a similar project at another telco that didn't telecommute and things went far smoother. People were able to actually walk to someone else's desk and confer. And face to face meetings always had the result of better communicating ideas than in chat windows and even phone calls. It also helped blow walls in the silos between teams when you could go to the area where the other team sat. Or call meetings with people in the same room. Telecommuting is nice for the workers, and I too like it, but is absolute shit for creating quality work in a timely manner. Slag at this all you want, but that is my perspective from two projects implementing the same system using two different management policies: telecommuting versus 'no telecommuting'. And 'no telecommuting' produced better work.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Those deck chairs aren't going to move themselves...
Feeding their dog? Walking around in their underwear? Reading Slashdot?
Don't that's going to cut it at the office. :)
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
If that's what you tell me for putting my resources at the company's disposal, for saving them money by providing my own "office" along with my own office supplies and blur the line between work time and leisure time enough that a call at 10pm usually starts with "oh good, I see you're still logged in...", expect my 2 weeks notice in the reply.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bah, this is just a sneaky way to start lay offs. They have 80 000 without a desk, what should they do?
Yeah, if you're going to do something like this, you need to give your developers something to believe in, a reason to work for the company. Otherwise your developers will see it and find another place to work.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was exactly what they are after. Removing existing perks (such as working from home) is a good way to increase the rate of natural attrition. It is a standard management technique: basically you annoy your staff so that they find jobs elsewhere, and you don't replace them. If your company was in enough trouble that you are going to need a round of redundancies, doing this means that you save a money by not having to pay those employees out, as they are the ones that resigned.
My objection to this technique has always been that by doing this, you essentially lose the people that have skills and can get jobs, and keep the people who don't have skills and can't get jobs, weakening your company. I'd generally rather choose who to make redundant, even if it costs a bit more, and keep the people who I know are actually productive around.
But bean-counters rarely seem to have the capacity to understand that argument.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
More importantly....
It's 2:00AM, some "very important server" has just gone down.
[Pointy Headed Management]"We have to get this server working or we'll lose millions an hour"
[Worker]" Sure, no problem, I'll drive in which should take 2 hours so I don't telecommute."
I've been telecommuting full time at home for over 7 years. Over half of our company is full time telecomuters spread across the USA. We are very successful at it and work very hard.
It is not like people imagine it. You wake up and get to work in the home office and stay disciplined. A lot to times you put in extra hours too. You get a lot more work done because you don't have office politics. Lots of phone calls, conference, video chat, and texting. If people don't see you fully engaged, producing, you will get fired. --- It is that simple. But you don't deal with traffic, hearing people backstabbing in adjacent cubicles, and all the bullshit that you wish you could get rid of to get your work done...
Sure you can take a break now and then, but if you get into goofing around people will be quick to notice just the same in this day in age. As long as you work hard and produce major results who cares. Studies have shown time and again that telecommuting produces greater results. Just don't do half and half. -- I don't think that works really well and leads to the stigma.
Meg and Carley are totally ignorant on full time telecommuting and the huge benefits. I think they are these hardcore career obsessed women who look down at family orientated women and say "heck no to those people telecommuting"... If they could they would probably ban maternity leave or kids to work as distractions. 20% of workers telecommute. Their mentality is that people are lazy by design an they need their people to be in cubicles.
In today's day in age unlike the 90's you've got instant messaging, facetime/skype, google video/chat... Most EDA tools can be local and licensed via a VPN license server.... I've been in countless meetings where we video collaborated work in real-time seamlessly. You don't need an office anymore for many types of industries. We would do complex engineering design online all the time.
It is ironic they don't like telecommuting but they force many of their employees to full time collaborate via video chatting, email, text to all the other divisions around the world....
We are headed to a contract for hire employee world as employers try to find legal ways not to offer health benefits, or trim staff like we're JIT inventory. It just makes sense that knowledge work be telecommute. It is far more efficient, cheaper for the company, and greater results.
Since HP, Intel, etc are companies where 30% is office politics and fun and games (I happen to know personally) they would benefit significantly.
[Worker]" Sure, no problem, I'll drive in which should take 2 hours so I don't telecommute."
I did that once (I lived 90 minutes' drive away)... it was the first and last time they ever thought a physical presence in a 'war room' to fix a gimped VM was that important to have.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Telecommuting is nice for the workers, and I too like it, but is absolute shit for creating quality work in a timely manner. Slag at this all you want, but that is my perspective from two projects implementing the same system using two different management policies: telecommuting versus 'no telecommuting'. And 'no telecommuting' produced better work.
You're using personal experience to make your argument. Well, good for you. Glad it worked out in your case. However, not everyone agrees. I was lampooning this CEO's blanket policy decision. Blanket policies are universally bad -- there has never been one that didn't leave a trail of carnage in its wake. "Ruling a kingdom is like cooking a fish. Don't overdo it." -- Lao Tzu. Effective leadership is more about a direction than a destination. It is less about policy and more about guideline. And great leadership is so transparent you don't even notice it. Everything just seems to click. Well... things at HP aren't clicking. And this CEO is coming in and trying to prove herself with a nice big shakeup. This is what almost every CEO does. It's like when people buy a house... they invariably paint it a different color as soon as they can! The other color might have been their favorite color. It might have been the best color for the house. But it has to be changed, because until it is, for psychological reasons that person won't consider the house "theirs" until it does.
This is about painting a house. It's about marking territory. Because if it wasn't, then the CEO would be making that decision on a per-business unit basis. Some lines of work function better with it. Some don't. Investigating and then making a decision shows thoughtfulness and consideration of the complexities of the business. Shoving a policy down everyone's throats screams "I gotta paint my new house!"
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's 2:00AM, some "very important server" has just gone down.
[Pointy Headed Management]"We have to get this server working or we'll lose millions an hour"
To which I would reply: "I thought you moved all those jobs it India so that we could have a 'Follow the Sun' model and none of us would have to woken out of a sound sleep, Bangalor will take care of it. Well, what happend to that plan?"
Another day closer to redwood heaven
Surely it's going to work. This is the cheapest way to get a lot of people to just resign without severance pay. Just like they suddenly decided to cancel *all* external hires in Europe about a 18 months ago, killing many profitable projects with that decision, in the end they will come up with a much leaner work force that is way more eager to keep their job than the oversized bureaucratic non-functioning organization they have had for many years. Either that, or they will go belly up. They could alternatively get their shit together and actually start managing, but that would require an effort and look bad towards shareholders because it would mean long term investments and not better quarterly results.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
This is a well known scenario called the dead sea effect.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Nissan motor company. But they also had a CEO that could execute. With a katana if necessary.
But bean-counters rarely seem to have the capacity to understand that argument.
Most companies cannot really evaluate people. They don't know the value of the people they employ. Bonus are given based on the success of the project you are working on and external sign of failure of you direct colleague. Deep down, bean counter know that. They know that if they are going to cherry-pick people, at best they will fire random people.
Also, when you pay executive hundred of times the salary of regular employee, at some point you start to believe they are worth it. With a team of rockstars like that, why would you care about relative performance of cheapo employee ?
Move? I heard about a guy that throws them! Across the room! He is also free for hire now.
Well, that's perfectly understandable. If her effect on the pool water quality was anything like what she did to HP, he'd have been stuck with 30000 gallons of toxic waste in his backyard.
Log in or piss off.
It's my experience that for many people, excessive casualness at work leads to treating work as casually as one may treat one's free time. Given how many people spend their free time particularly passively, this can be a problem.
Wearing attire different for the time when one works for someone else than one wears for one's self can help reiterate to the person that professional time is just that, professional.
Certainly there are examples of this not holding true, as there are individuals that will act professionally in casual attire, and there are individuals that will act casually in professional attire, but it seems to hold that more people are professional when in professional attire than are professional when in casual attire.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
BS. Wearing a monkey suit might be good if you spend a lot of your time out and meeting business-persons. In the workplace, it's often uncomfortable and distracting.
Where I work, weather ranges from -30c to 30+c depending on the time of year. Wearing a suit is sweaty, uncomfortable, and frankly results in some personal odor issues for people who are prone to perspiration.
We also have people who bike/walk to work. They wear reasonable clothes for work, but they're also easy to change in/out of.
Suits make suits feel better, but they're not for everyone. While a Hawaiian shirt and a g-string aren't work appropriate, reasonably comfortable clothing is fine for most people. Starting a professional, respectful workplace starts with attitude, not clothes.
It's my experience that for many people, excessive casualness at work leads to treating work as casually as
It's my experience that other people most certianly do judge me (and probably you) by looks, including dress. There was one period early in my career where I decided to dress as casually as I could get away with. I also grew my hair down into a ponytail. Slowly while this was going on, somehow at work my perception changed from a bright young go-getter to a useless slacker.
When things got the worst for me career-wise, I decided to physically clean up. After all, its trivial to do. Certianly much easier than actually changing my attitude, right? So I started dressing up. One day at work I just started showing up in dress slacks and shoes, tie and jacket. breifcase instead of backpack. I cut the ponytail off.
It wasn't as obvious during the slow transformation, but the sudden change back was dramatic. Overnight I was right back to being a praised go-getter. Not only that, but I noticed that salespeople in stores would talk to me again, as would panhandlers. When I was ponytail guy, car salemen in patrticular would just act like I didn't exist. Even if I was there to buy something.
If you haven't tried it yourself, you'd be absolutely amazed how much other people's perception of you is based on looks. The thing is, dress and hairstyle are pretty much entirely in your control. You may have a style of each you prefer, but from a strict economic perspective, if you don't do both to maximize your preception at work, you aren't hurting anyone but yourself. So that's what the value of ties is.
The whole experience also left me with a new appreciation for folks with ethnic, weight, or general attractivness issues. While I was being studiously ignored by car salesmen until I left, there was a black guy on the lot getting the same treatment. I could go home and cut off my pony-tail. What could he do?