31–40 of 68 posts
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... Both WSJ article and the one I linked to are from March.
"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 area…
> 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 sup…
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.
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.
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.
First they took free tea and coffee in the office ( http://www.rediff.com/money/2009/apr/15bcrisis-no-more-free-... ) now they are taking away WFH. There are fewer and fewer incentives to work for IBM.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
TIL that some people chose to work at IBM because of the free tea and coffee
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…
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.
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.
I view this move as a life lesson since they will most likely do their best to retain remote workers that are in-line or above when it comes to performance.
The rest will need to figure out what they want to do; you can't cry about this if you did not pull your weight.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
TIL that some people chose to work at IBM because of the free tea and coffee
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.