IBM, which has long had a large telecommuting population, has made a massive policy change: Move into one of six offices, or leave the company. According to The Register this was announced through a confidential video, viewed by their staff. This move was announced by chief marketing officer Michelle Peluso and is merely the first wave, with a second set to begin in March.
IBM, which has had 19 consecutive quarters with declining revenue, clearly has some problems. Is this solution?
In 2013, Marissa Mayer did the same thing–brought everyone into the office. That wasn’t the solution to Yahoo’s problems. Why does IBM think this will be the solution to their problems? Peluso stated on the video:
To keep reading more, click here: Why IBM’s Move to Limit Telecommuting (a la Marissa Mayer) Is Doomed
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I wouldn’t work for a company that didn’t offer work from home as an option.
THIS. “The problem with a massive move like this is that people who are best positioned to find new work are the ones who are less likely to make a move they don’t want to make.”
In my experience the people who dislike and distrust telecommuting are lazy managers. They are managers without the skills and vision to develop ways to measure employee performance beyond, “Was her butt in her seat from 8 – 5 every day?”
I spent most of my career at a Fortune 20 telecommunications company that SOLD telecommuting products and tools to its customers. Yet no one in my company had the vision to set up a robust telecommuting program, and telecommuting was generally forbidden throughout the company.
Simple, scaled-up “constructive dismissals”. Management wants to cut costs rapidly and weed out anyone unwilling to work incessantly to take up the slack. The approach spares management the agony of rack-and-stack employee sorting, paying unemployment compensation (at least in some States), announcing mass layoffs — it’s all about productivity, you communist! 🙂
Key takeaway: dispersed workforces are easy to contract and downsize.
Plus your good workers are paid more and those workers will find it easier to find new jobs. Lots of savings!
Marissa Meyer is such an innovative manager. Go from company to company and implement the exact same orders without studying what the company needs. Yet she gets paid a fortune and the workers get treated like crap.
Exactly! And they get away with it, and get paid millions of dollars, when they could probably be replaced with a Magic 8 Ball. I’d like to know how they do it.
I work remotely and occasionally go to the office for meetings. Every time I visit, I am struck by how much more productive I am at home. So much time gets sucked away in necessary collegial small talk, and getting interrupted constantly by drop-in questions or ad-hoc meetings keeps me from establishing flow.
I’ve been lucky in that I’ve been able to work remotely for about half my career. While sometimes I miss being able to have the physical separation between work and home, I sure get a lot more done!