IBM, Remote-Work Pioneer, is Calling Thousands Of Employees Back To the Office (qz.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Less than a year into her tenure as IBM's chief marketing officer, Michelle Peluso prepared to make an announcement that she knew would excite some of her 5,500 new employees, but also, inevitably, inspire resignation notices from others. In a video message, Peluso 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." IBM had decided to "co-locate" the US marketing department, about 2,600 people, which meant that all teams would now work together, "shoulder to shoulder," from one of six different locations -- Atlanta, Raleigh, Austin, Boston, San Francisco, and New York. Employees who worked primarily from home would be required to commute, and employees who worked remotely or from an office that was not on the list (or an office that was on the list, but different than the one to which their teams had been assigned) would be required to either move or look for another job. Similar announcements had already been made in other departments, and more would be made in the future. At IBM, which has embraced remote work for decades, a relatively large proportion of employees work outside of central hubs. (By 2009, when remote work was still, for most, a novelty, 40% of IBM's 386,000 global employees already worked at home). [...] "When you're playing phone tag with someone is quite different than when you're sitting next to someone and can pop up behind them and ask them a question," Peluso says. Not all IBM employees see it that way.

Comments

Re:Stealth Layoff

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly how Reddit did it. Eliminate WFH employees, eliminate everyone that doesn't want to or can't physically relocate, and you've downsized while making it seem like it was the departing employees choice to leave.

Re:Work/home balance

[ghoul]

"I sacrificed my family life to get where I am. Why does SHE get to work from home and pick up her kids?" Sounds familiar
I work in consulting and a lot of my employees work as contractors. I meet with the client managers for feedback regularly and I get maximum complaints about our female employees taking days off or WFH to deal with school, sickness etc. Funny thing its mostly the female Client managers complaining not the males. Maybe the males expect women to be taking time off to deal with kid issues. But its wierd that its always women complaining about other women taking time off to deal with kids. I have even had one say "I dont take time off when my kid is sick . Why does your contractor take a half day to go watch a recital?"

Re:Worked@IBM in 1980's, left, because sucked.

[cayenne8]

I know...the ability to "interrupt" is a horrible one.

I've been working from home for a few years now, and I even turn off the damned IM products they have tried thrusting upon us...latest one, Lync.

I can't get a damned thing done without someone trying to annoy me on lync, and it usually is NOT something that is a priority item.

I will fire it up and join a meeting when needed, or desktop sharing is absolutely required, but for 99% of my time, I do not need it and it is detrimental to my work and concentration.

Fortunately, I've been around long enough where no one really presses me on it like they do others...but I find email to be best way to work, it is asynchronous, and AND...I think it leaves a much better paper trail for CYA when needed at future times.