Pioneer of 'telework' tells employees they must return to office
or find another job
By John Simons
International Business Machines Corp. is giving thousands of its
remote workers in the U.S. a choice this week: Abandon your home
workspaces and relocate to a regional office -- or leave the
company.
The 105-year-old technology giant is quietly dismantling its
popular decades-old remote work program to bring employees back
into offices, a move it says will improve collaboration and
accelerate the pace of work.
The changes comes as IBM copes with 20 consecutive quarters of
falling revenue and rising shareholder ire over Chief Executive
Ginni Rometty's pay package.
The company won't say how many of its 380,000 employees are
affected by the policy change, which so far has been rolled out to
its Watson division, software development, digital marketing, and
design -- divisions that employ tens of thousands of workers.
The shift is particularly surprising since the Armonk, N.Y.,
company has been among the business world's staunchest boosters of
remote work, both for itself and its customers. IBM markets
software and services for what it calls "the anytime, anywhere
workforce," and its researchers have published numerous studies on
the merits of remote work.
In the past, IBM has boasted that more than 40% of employees
worked outside traditional company offices, and a May 4 post on the
company's Smarter Workforce blog stated that "telework works."
IBM may be part of a broader rethink of remote work under way at
large companies, as corporate leaders argue that putting workers in
the same physical space hastens the speed of work and sparks
innovation. Employers tread a fine line, however, since workers
rate flexible-work programs highly, and research has found
telecommuters often work more effectively than their cubicle-bound
counterparts.
Yahoo Inc.'s decision to call telecommuters back to the office
in 2013 set off a furor among employees and workplace experts. Yet
more recent decisions at Bank of America Corp. and Aetna Inc. to
greatly reduce telecommuting have elicited little outrage.
Big Blue's leaders want employees to work differently now, said
Laurie Friedman, a company spokeswoman. The company has rebuilt
design and digital marketing teams to quickly respond to real-time
data and customer feedback, collaborations that happen more easily
when teams work shoulder to shoulder, Ms. Friedman said, adding
that the "vast majority" of IBM's telecommuters have chosen to join
their teams in person.
Workers in affected IBM divisions have been given 30 days to
decide whether to move to company-maintained office space that can
be hundreds of miles away from their homes.
For example, marketing employees were invited to move to offices
in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Raleigh, New York or San Francisco, or
leave the company. Some were given the option to move to Chicago.
Those unwilling to move were also given 90 days to seek another
role within IBM.
The changes have stunned longtime IBM employees like marketing
manager Ron Favali. The 15-year company veteran has spent the past
12 years working from an office in his home outside Tampa, Fla.,
and considered himself a remote-work success story.
His team uses IBM's Sametime instant-messaging voice and video
chat software to stay connected and on task, despite being
scattered in three states. Working remotely came with career
trade-offs, he said. "I was never going to be named vice president
of marketing for anything, but I'm OK with that." He has declined
IBM's offer to return to a company workspace, and will leave the
company next month to start a marketing firm out of his home.
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.
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.
IBM says its co-location plan isn't a cost-saving measure. Ms.
Friedman noted that the employees who can't join an in-person team
can apply for one of more than 5,000 open jobs in the U.S.
Working from the master bedroom in her Ogden Dunes, Ind., home,
Penny Schlyer helped market IBM mobile software and services for
companies reliant on workers who aren't bound to a desk, such as
retail employees, financial advisers or doctors.
Her seven years telecommuting with IBM could have been plucked
from one of her marketing campaigns: She has logged work hours from
the sidelines of her sons' sporting events and used Sametime to
communicate with her colleagues.
She was dismayed when IBM requested the 48-year-old mother of
three move to the company's New York City office. "The irony is
definitely not lost there," she said.
Though IBM offered to pay for the move and make a small
cost-of-living adjustment to her salary, Ms. Schlyer declined. "I
could never afford to live in New York City, and probably not
anywhere close."
She has found a new job leading product marketing for SA Ignite,
a Chicago-based software company, but her office won't change; she
is still in the master bedroom.
Write to John Simons at John.Simons@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 19, 2017 02:47 ET (06:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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