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IBM: Remote Working Is Great! (For Everyone Except Us) (theregister.co.uk)

Posted by msmash on from the stranger-things dept.

An anonymous reader writes: IBM, the company that just weeks ago said it was doing away with its work-from-home policy, is now preaching the benefits of telecommuting to customers. Big Blue's Smarter Workforce Group says a recent panel it hosted at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) conference concluded that customers who work remotely are "more engaged, have stronger trust in leadership and much stronger intention to stay. These findings mirror what an IBM Smarter Workforce Institute study found," the group wrote. "Challenging the modern myths of remote working shares employee research revealing that remote workers are highly engaged, more likely to consider their workplaces as innovative, happier about their job prospects and less stressed than their more traditional, office-bound colleagues." This is posted without any apparent sense of irony, as IBM said just weeks ago that remote workers were not part of its "recipe for success" and could no longer be permitted to work anywhere other than its six regional offices in various techie hubs around the US.

10 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Finding remote work is hard by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I never had trouble finding a job as a programmer until I started looking for remote work.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:Finding remote work is hard by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      but it makes many managers uncomfortable.

      Managing remote workers is often different, and to many that means harder, and the average manager (like the average person) prefers easy.

    2. Re:Finding remote work is hard by computational+super · · Score: 4, Insightful

      but it makes many managers uncomfortable

      Yet having remote workers on a different continent, in a different time zone, who don't necessarily speak the same language, is perfectly logical.

      --
      Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
    3. Re:Finding remote work is hard by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yet having remote workers on a different continent, in a different time zone, who don't necessarily speak the same language, is perfectly logical.

      Things don't need to be logical these days . . . they just need to be cheaper. The cheapest suggestion, which saves the most operating costs, wins.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  2. Not as hypocritical as it sounds... by erac3rx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...when you know the real reason for removing their work-from-home policy and asking that everyone go to physical IBM offices.

    They're not doing away with employees working remotely because they don't believe in it, they're doing away with it to encourage their oldest employees to retire or quit. Possibly also to weed out some employees who weren't really doing any work, which happens plenty with any job that offers telecommuting.

    Once their oldest employees who aren't willing to relocate or move to keep their job quit, they'll offer telecommuting to their employees again.

    1. Re:Not as hypocritical as it sounds... by Baron_Yam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's not exactly the first time this type of thing has been done. It's a page out of the HR version of Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

      PetroCanada, for instance, bounced its offices back and forth between Toronto and Calgary a few times (back in the 80s or 90s). Lots of people tried to hang on and lost their shirts on moving expenses because the housing markets happened to be going the opposite way of the moves.

      Companies will sometimes hire an 'axe man' who gives them advice on the best way to get employees to leave for the least possible expense to the corporation. Forcing them to choose between moving and quitting is not uncommon.

    2. Re:Not as hypocritical as it sounds... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Of course, they are more likely to lose their best employees (regardless of age) in this process as those are the ones that can get a local job that is as good or better by this time tomorrow. The ones who will move for the job, esp. if generous relocation is not offered, are likely to be the least employable.

  3. Re: No Remote Working? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The get paid 1/3 what the average American does. You're more likely to get remote work if you're willing to work for less.

  4. Re:Big Blue WFH Policy by Dog-Cow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A job workable from anywhere is not synonymous with a job workable by anyone. The more companies that think otherwise, the more companies will slowly fail.

  5. Re:Unfortunately, for IBM . . . by avandesande · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What sad times we are in when we are proud to have our own cubicle...

    --
    love is just extroverted narcissism