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IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

theregister.com

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Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#11

Post by tempest_ »

foobiekr wrote: post #9
givemeethekeys wrote: post #4

The general reasoning given by a lot of these companies is that WFH did not work. Same companies were telling is how well it worked and they had the numbers to back it up. I think they are looking for scapegoats for some cost cutting. Officially force people back and hopefully some will quit. In practice, many will continue to operate as before.

I work for a company that made a big deal about how well it worked. The CEO and chief people officer both made a lot of public statements about it, during and just after covid. They did this claiming they had the numbers to back it up and said numbers but they basically made them up. It was PR and they were using it to aid recruiting into what was and is a company that young people avoided. What numbers they did have…

This often just feels like bad management.

They go remote, but don't change a lot of other things or attempt to mitigate the downsides (there are downsides, everything is a trade off) and then claim its a failure when they need a stealth layoff.

Also IBM has a long history of "Resource Actions" so this type of thing is not all unexpected from them.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#13

Post by panzagl »

You know, even if you hired a protected class because of DEI fashion, that doesn't mean you can fire them just because the fashion has changed. The laws protecting them are still there, and I would think announcing "we're getting rid of DEI hires" would be giving a labor lawyer a discrimination case on a plate.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#14

Post by mikeyouse »

panzagl wrote: post #13

You know, even if you hired a protected class because of DEI fashion, that doesn't mean you can fire them just because the fashion has changed. The laws protecting them are still there, and I would think announcing "we're getting rid of DEI hires" would be giving a labor lawyer a discrimination case on a plate.

I think it's more they're gutting the DEI programs rather than the hires - many large companies have some variant of "reach out and hold campus events at HBCUs" or "sponsor a booth at a Girls who Code conference" which are suddenly mortal sins in the eyes of the people doling out Federal procurement contracts.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#15

Post by sidewndr46 »

panzagl wrote: post #13

You know, even if you hired a protected class because of DEI fashion, that doesn't mean you can fire them just because the fashion has changed. The laws protecting them are still there, and I would think announcing "we're getting rid of DEI hires" would be giving a labor lawyer a discrimination case on a plate.

This is sort of like saying "IBM can't create a program designed to specifically prefer H-1Bs". They can't. They have had to pay tens of thousands of dollars in associated fees due to those illegal acts. They've also had to promise not do it again. Which they have. They paid those fines, again when caught doing the thing they can't do because it's illegal.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#16

Post by angelgonzales »

Within the last half decade it appears like IBM overtly markets to whatever administration and party is in power, a few years ago they were marketing creepy vaccine passports [1].

[1] https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/vaccine-passport

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#17

Post by martinald »

tempest_ wrote: post #11
foobiekr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a company that made a big deal about how well it worked. The CEO and chief people officer both made a lot of public statements about it, during and just after covid. They did this claiming they had the numbers to back it up and said numbers but they basically made them up. It was PR and they were using it to aid recruiting into what was and is a company that young people avoided. What numbers they did have…

This often just feels like bad management. They go remote, but don't change a lot of other things or attempt to mitigate the downsides (there are downsides, everything is a trade off) and then claim its a failure when they need a stealth layoff. Also IBM has a long history of "Resource Actions" so this type of thing is not all unexpected from them.

I don't know if it's bad management per se. I think some people are very well suited for remote; some people aren't. Probably a rough extension of introversion/extroversion in the people mix.

If you take a bunch of very extroverted people and have them all work remotely they will not have a good time (in general).

Equally; if you take a bunch of very introverted people and have them in an office they'll really not like it, especially in open plan.

The other problem is fraud levels in hiring for fully remote is absolutely shocking. There are so many stories now of fake candidates etc, massive cheating in interviews with AI, etc. I've seen many stories like that even with really 'in depth' interview processes, so much so people are now going back to in person interviews en masse.

My rough take is that organisations need to really rethink this home/office thing from first principles. I suspect most engineering teams can work as well/better fully remote. I very much doubt all roles are like that. I think we'll see WFH being based on department or role rather than these global policies.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#18

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

jmclnx wrote: post #7

IBM will use any excuse to justify firing people over 50 years old. So "DEI purge" is just an excuse, nothing more. Everyone I know there knows this was coming after Nov 2024. IBM just wants to hide the number and age of the people being fired.

Yeah they kind of got burned by the "dinobabies" comment from a while back.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#19

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

panzagl wrote: post #13

You know, even if you hired a protected class because of DEI fashion, that doesn't mean you can fire them just because the fashion has changed. The laws protecting them are still there, and I would think announcing "we're getting rid of DEI hires" would be giving a labor lawyer a discrimination case on a plate.

But the case won't get heard because the entire NLRB is frozen up. The dept of justice also won't hear these cases. So it doesn't even matter how blatant the violation is if there is no enforcement.

Re: IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge

#20

Post by osigurdson »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #4

The general reasoning given by a lot of these companies is that WFH did not work. Same companies were telling is how well it worked and they had the numbers to back it up. I think they are looking for scapegoats for some cost cutting. Officially force people back and hopefully some will quit. In practice, many will continue to operate as before.

I think it is largely just rationalizing what is fashionable. WFH was fashionable for a while. Now WFO + AI replacement is cool.
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