IBM Consulting orders staff back to the office for at least three days a week IBM Consulting on Tuesday issued a policy telling US employees located near IBM or client offices that they are expected to be in the office at least three days a week. The directive has not gone over well. Employees responding to the revised work rules on IBM's Fishbowl app, used for internal discussions, speculate the IT …
Wrong question - they can easily pull in stats from when 100% of the Global Services were office based and IBM were more successful and correlate the two.
I left long ago but remember 20+ years ago when we were encouraged (to the point of IBM buying internet connections) to work from home so the offices could be sold off. Personally I think 3 days is two much, I generally try to get into an office (wherever I'm working) once a week to catch up with people and of course I'm with the client whenever the client wants me there.
Same here, I used to work from an IBM location, it had two wings, several floors, and slowly it was sold off until there was just one floor left. I changed locations, .... and slowly chunks of that building were sold off. We went to WFH and they paid for people's broadband, but that ended. So many of the nice touches withered, the IBM Club, Broadband for WFH, half day off for Xmas shopping, training, respecting the employees,..
Worked for a company which was acquired by IBM. I put a much requested feature into our main product. Result: disciplined because it was 'not approved by product manager'. That feature is still not in the product.
We also did a 'hack day' to tick the corporate 'we are sooo innovative' box. There were quite a lot of good ideas, none of which ever made it into any product. The fad for 'demonstrating innovation' quickly passed and we never had another 'hack day'.
Hmm.
I never even met most of my line managers. Those that I did meet, it was only once or twice. The 'team' (whichever way you look at it, reporting to a line manager or whomever was managing the account at the time) was usually dispersed and rarely in the same place at the same time.
I do admit to missing the banter (I worked with some great people on-site so it was always a pleasure and never really a chore). But now, with offices far away and customer site visits rare and infrequent, its not enough to build relationships....
Given that loads of IBM staffers place of work is in 3rd party offices, I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of this directive is.
Funny, I have copies of OS/2 and PC DOS lying around from the 90's still, and have much fonder memories of the former organisation. Today it's just another Crapita.
As the news trickle in, every company seems keen on this 3 day a week religion. This might make sense for some companies but given the vast differences between IBM and, for example, BT i just wonder why this 3 day recipe is so universally liked by whoever makes those decisions.
Of course, if you intend to annoy people enought that they quit "voluntarily", having a two day at the office mandate might not be as annoying as a monday, wednesday, friday mandate.
But back on my first thought. How come so different companies all want the same mandate ? What exactly are the advantages against a company (and company part/site/work dependant) specific rule, ranging from 1 day a week to the old full week of appearance ?
``In one message, a staffer wrote: "These bozos just cannot stop signing leases.''
That is the essence of all the recent back-to-the-office edicts. Some C-level okayed the leasing of expensive office space and, ``Dammit, you plebes are going to sit in it or you're going to sit somewhere else as another company's employee''.
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