
IBM, a Pioneer of Remote Work, Calls Workers Back to the Office - stephenhuey
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ibm-a-pioneer-of-remote-work-calls-workers-back-to-the-office-1495108802
======
blakesterz
_" Companies began offering generous remote work policies because they
expected large savings in office and real-estate costs, said Jennifer Glass, a
University of Texas professor who studies telecommuting and advises companies
on remote-work strategies. Those savings haven't materialized, Ms. Glass said,
so workers are being called back to the office."_

How is that possible? For large companies in really expensive areas
especially.

 _" Relocating offices or asking employees to move can sometimes be read as
layoffs in disguise, since a certain percentage of workers won't be able to
relocate."_

That seems more likely to be the one of the biggest real reasons why they're
doing this.

~~~
nugget
> It’s unlikely that IBM employees, as they centralize in office hubs, will
> reap the lavish office benefits and constant supply of free gourmet food
> that companies like Facebook and Google use to keep employees on-site. They
> won’t even receive raises after moving to expensive cities like San
> Francisco and New York.

If it's true that they won't offer any COL adjustment for folks headed to SF
or NY, then that would support the view that it's meant to reduce headcount.

~~~
loukrazy
They do not offer COL adjustment. Also no guarantees that you will not have to
subsequently relocate to another location

~~~
brainopener
I used to know IBM'ers who said it stood for "I Be Moving"

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fensterblick
With IBM, one can't help but feel this is a tactic to force layoffs without
having to actually do a layoff. I believe they tried similar tactics in their
Global Business Services division in the mid-2000s.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Of course it's a layoff. It's the same thing yahoo did. When business are
doing well they don't force their employees into impossible situations.

~~~
hackunomatter
Yahoo's policy affected about 180 people. That's about 1.5% of the company. Of
those 180, about 60 were allowed to WFH. "Firing" 120 people in such a
convoluted way is stupid. But the Internet continues to believe in stupider
things, so who am I to ask.

~~~
johnnyfaehell
Didn't Yahoo look at their VPN logs and notice people literally weren't doing
any work?

~~~
hackunomatter
Yes. Most people forget these details and just hate on "Oh noes! Working from
home was banned!!".

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krzyk
First they took free tea and coffee in the office
([http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/apr/15bcrisis-no-more-
free-...](http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/apr/15bcrisis-no-more-free-tea-
coffee-for-ibm-staff.htm)) now they are taking away WFH.

There are fewer and fewer incentives to work for IBM.

~~~
misja111
TIL that some people chose to work at IBM because of the free tea and coffee

~~~
vorpalhex
Despite the fact that I usually bring my coffee from home, or go to a local
shop, the fact that a company offers free coffee/snacks/etc matters from a
perspective.

If a company is going to nickel and dime you, charge you $0.25 for a coffee or
force you to provide your own... they probably are going to be cheap in other
places as well. If they aren't willing to give you coffee or seltzer, they are
hardly going to give you good hardware or software - which is something that
does affect me.

That being said, that only goes so far. I don't really care about free
lunches, or if a company has some game console. I mostly just don't want to
work for a company that is going to nickel and dime me because it means
they're cheapskates.

~~~
throwanem
Free lunches are a startup-culture thing, for the most part. Game consoles,
likewise. I don't need toys to play with at work, or my food paid for - I'm a
grownup, and I can deal.

Free coffee isn't really in the same realm. The most enterprisey places I've
ever worked have still offered it, not because they felt like being
sweethearts, but because it makes hard economic sense - people _will_ drink
coffee, and at modern professional salaries, having them spend their paid time
dealing directly with all the ancillaries around it is quite literally more
expensive than just buying coffee and maintaining the equipment involved.
Dropping it is thus penny wise, pound foolish.

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Harkins
Hospice recall? When an elderly loved one enters hospice and is unlikely to
ever leave, all the family is called back in to gather for their death.
Happened with Yahoo a couple years ago. I didn't realize IBM was doing so
poorly.

~~~
jbob2000
That's a great point! I tried out Bluemix and it was soooo bad! I was
awestruck as to how a company as big as IBM could create something so hacked
together. Amazon literally paved the way for cloud services, all they had to
do was copy them.

I mean, just visit the IBM website. Try to figure out what it is they
_actually do_. It's ridiculous. I have no idea WTF any of their services are.

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jondubois
Having worked for both small startups and large corporations, I fully
understand why remote work doesn't make sense for large companies. Large
companies have a lot of trouble keeping track of what their employees are
doing even when they are in the office.

I've worked for a couple of large companies where some employees came into the
office everyday but did essentially nothing and no one really cared. If those
same employees had the opportunity to work remotely, then they might actually
have fun on company time - They could even take up a second "full time job"
which also allows them to do nothing and they would get two paychecks for
doing nothing.

It's actually not difficult to put yourself into a position within some big
companies where everyone forgets you exist but you still get a paycheck.

There are some big companies where employees make quotation signs with their
fingers when saying the phrase 'He/she is "working from home" today' whilst
chuckling among each other.

For employees to be motivated to work from home, they need to be able to see
clearly how their work affects the company and their career path -
Unfortunately big companies don't offer enough accountability for this to
happen.

~~~
lovich
I can see where big companies are coming from with wanting the people they pay
to do work, but if you can't tell if that's happening when they work remotely
why would you be able to tell if its happening when they are in the office.
The only thing they can tell accurately now is that people are in their
cubes/seat/open office plan. They'd be better off coming up with some way to
evaluate the output of their employees if this was really about that. However
I am of the opinion that this is just layoffs with a different name, and
that's why you don't see an effort to actually evaluate output.

~~~
jondubois
It's about incentives. If your employees know that they're stuck in the office
all day, they have fewer options; their non-work activities are limited to
browsing Facebook, reading blogs and looking at cat pictures - They can either
do those things or actually do work.

If they're at home they can play computer games, go out, watch a movie, etc...

~~~
Kirth
> It's about incentives.

I see being allowed to work from home as a sign of respect and confidence.
Therefor I return that respect by not fucking with said opportunity.

Given the ability to schedule in chores or a bit of fun during breaks, my
breaks become far more productive.

When I get stuck or something or am blocking on someone at work, I tend to
browse hackernews, some forums, ... You end up with activities that draw you
in more and more, potentially wasting hours without really having the
refreshing effect you need breaks to have.

When I'm at home, I get up and vacuum a couple of rooms, clean the kitchen or
maybe even skip out an hour to work out when the gym's calm to help clear my
mind. I'm confident in saying my days spent working from home are by far the
most productive of my entire week.

> If they're at home they can play computer games, go out, watch a movie,
> etc... Someone like that can just as well be expected to spend their entire
> days scrolling through cat pictures. Don't hire someone you think you can't
> trust working from home, they won't fare much better on-site.

~~~
jondubois
I'm the same but unfortunately not everyone is honest. I've met people who
went to the beach during office hours and did almost no work. Then they
bragged about it.

~~~
lovich
Right, but that means you have no way of evaluating their output. On the other
hand, maybe you are evaluating their output and that employee is still meeting
their targets. At that point why do you care if they can fuck off half the day
and get the same work done, if you aren't going to offer a pay increase?

~~~
jondubois
In a big company (particularly in highly regulated industries) it can get very
difficult to measure employee output because quite often an employee may be
blocked from completing a task because of regulatory requirements, company
policies or scalability considerations - This sometimes forces employees from
one team to coordinate with other teams who are working on a project
dependency and can lead to busy-waiting.

Sometimes employees can be moved onto other temporary tasks while the other
team completes their task/dependency but this causes the employees in the
former team to lose focus - Making employees context-switch between too many
projects carries a cost which may be higher than just allowing them to busy-
wait from time to time.

------
Callmenorm
Didn't we have an article on HN last month that said IBM claims remote workers
work harder and longer with more loyalty?

We also had an article that said their marketing dept. was killing remote
workers.

~~~
drewg123
One of them is likely
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291461](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291461)

------
codingdave
IBM is calling its marketing teams back into the offices. Not all remote
workers. The marketing teams. At least as far as I, and the people I know who
work at IBM, have heard.

~~~
jbfr
Disclosure: I work for IBM on a team impacted by these changes.

As far as I know multiple business units within IBM, including Cloud, Watson,
and Watson IoT have gone through relocation requests for Design and
Engineering roles.

~~~
loukrazy
Former IBM engineer here, can confirm this has been happening for many job
roles over the last year in many divisions

------
Matt3o12_
A lot of people said that they just use that to fire people but isn't that the
most counterproductive to do so because most of the good people who do not
have trouble finding another job will just quit while the desperate who need
the job and cannot find anything comparable will most likely stay.

So wouldn't this hurt the company a lot more in the long run since more talent
will be gone and the less talented people will stay. Sure it will reduce the
payroll expenses but they should be seeing less revenue rather quickly.

~~~
chrisbennet
I don't think they really care about the long run. They are burning the
furniture to keep warm at this point.

~~~
Matt3o12_
Still, should the investors get upset? Firing a selected group of people is
one thing (which many investory see as good) but firing their best people does
not sound very smart to them either (and I believe most of them are worried
about the long term because they cannot just dump 100k in stocks without
affecting their price too much).

------
priam
My speculation is this is a way to make cuts without firing anyone

------
sctb
Related discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291461](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291461)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13603831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13603831)

------
dbg31415
Seems more PR-friendly than, "We are doing a round of layoffs..." Cheaper for
them too, as they don't have to pay severance. This is all-around skeezy.

------
zachmax
I believe this is only for marketing teams

~~~
eesaitcho
It happened to all tech folks in my group (IBM Analytics) about a year ago. I
was remote, but got axed by an RA (layoff) before it took effect.

~~~
zachmax
Sorry to hear about that mate :/ Hope you're in a good situation now!

------
beezle
I've Been Moved

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alltakendamned
Non-paywall link?

~~~
nandhp
[http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/05/18/ibm-
pioneer-r...](http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/05/18/ibm-pioneer-
remote-work-calls-workers-back-to-office.html)

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crusso
The normal trick of opening wsj articles in an incognito window is no longer
working for me.

Here's a link that worked for me: [https://qz.com/924167/ibm-remote-work-
pioneer-is-calling-tho...](https://qz.com/924167/ibm-remote-work-pioneer-is-
calling-thousands-of-employees-back-to-the-office/)

Both WSJ article and the one I linked to are from March.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
Off topic to post, but it's fairly easy to track unique visitors outside of
cookies.

~~~
crusso
You mean unique IP addresses?

