maybe there's a new and exciting product that they want to develop that needs everyone's exclusive attention, or it's a business idea that will fail miserably.
IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
11–20 of 118 posts
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#12Disclosure: I'm a developer at IBM, but not speaking in official capacity. The comment here is completely personal. I went through this article and it seems like a lot of FUD. The line to note is: > Though not every department at IBM will be asked to colocate, many will. So yes, some departments have been "asked" to colocate. However, AFAIK nobody is being "forced". My team lead was asked to colocate but decided to s…
So IBM employees who refuse the company's formal request to colocate shouldn't be nervous about their status in the medium to long-term future?
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#13What I find a bit odd is that this is ostensibly about becoming more innovative.
But does anyone really believe that major strategic business and product innovation occurs at the level of the individual contributors and teams who will be affected by this change?
I mean, sure, cool new features happen at that level, but you can't tell me the iPhone would've fallen out of a "water cooler" conversation between a couple of C++ devs on a Wednesday afternoon in the office.
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#14A theory among some employees is that IBM is using co-location as a downsizing effort.
I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice.
Like Best Buy and Yahoo at the points at which they decided to co-locate, IBM is a business that needs to do something new.
Our businesses are shrinking, so let's try something new: make our employees less productive.
Despite the positive spin the writer puts on the plan, to me it seems like the death throes of past-their-prime companies.
And based on what others have said in these comments, the change is mostly affecting marketing employees.
I'd say co-location is a pet tactic of the writer, without any real evidence that remote work is anything but progress.
If a job can be done remotely, it should be done remotely.
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#15This isn't universal - a good friend of mine works for a team that is getting shipped off to IBM as part of a merger, and told to apply for the new IBM jobs if they want to keep working there. Ignoring the ugliness of that situation for the moment, he specifically asked about this news of remote work ending as it relates to how coding jobs would be impacted, and was told that the jobs he was applying for were intende…
He should get that in writing.
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#16It worked out ever so well for Yahoo when Mayer did it so surely it'll work for IBM who has two orders of magnitude more employees...actually, perhaps the end goal is voluntary resignations?
> perhaps the end goal is voluntary resignations? That's the only explanation that makes sense.
Why not simply fire those who they don't want to work with anymore? They're clearly used to do that at IBM and it would be much more controlled and cost effective.
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#17I have known many people who work in companies like Oracle, IBM etc where there is consulting at client location and then report at designated office. Generally reporting at designated office is very lax and people either are at client site or just stay at home. I wonder if tightening remote work requirement is for these people too.
Lately at traditional IT companies even temporarily non-billable resources are increasingly being scrutinized for their output.
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#18A theory among some employees is that IBM is using co-location as a downsizing effort. I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice. Like Best Buy and Yahoo at the points at which they decided to co-locate, IBM is a business that needs to do somethin…
> Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice.
Downsizing this way means people with kids or other obligations that make controlling your own schedule convenient are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice.
FTFY.
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#19Disclosure: I'm a developer at IBM, but not speaking in official capacity. The comment here is completely personal. I went through this article and it seems like a lot of FUD. The line to note is: > Though not every department at IBM will be asked to colocate, many will. So yes, some departments have been "asked" to colocate. However, AFAIK nobody is being "forced". My team lead was asked to colocate but decided to s…
So IBM employees who refuse the company's formal request to colocate shouldn't be nervous about their status in the medium to long-term future?
I agree. I think this is first step to separate out people who are unwilling to relocate. Next they will look at the work they are doing, if deemed non-critical I assume they will be first to go.
Re: IBM has decided to co-locate its US marketing department
#20A theory among some employees is that IBM is using co-location as a downsizing effort. I hope it's not an accurate theory. Downsizing this way means your most self-motivated, productive employees are likely to leave long before those who drive to the office because they feel they have no other choice. Like Best Buy and Yahoo at the points at which they decided to co-locate, IBM is a business that needs to do somethin…
I am not sure it is all bad. So the best leave which is bad, but you don't have to pay their wages anymore which is good (and if you don't make enough money it's the only option).
The not-that-good stay, but you force them to be in the office, which is bad. But being in the office will turn these not-that-good into gets-the-job-done (I've seen 4-5 developers hunch over a trivial problem but, in the end, they solved it) and since you already have the product built and maybe you just adapt it, that is all you need.