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IBM, one of the earliest companies to embrace the concept of employees working en masse from home or small satellite offices, has informed thousands of employees that it's time to return to the mothership—or find a new job. As The Wall Street Journal reports, this week is the deadline for remote employees—who make up as much as 40 percent of IBM's workforce—to decide whether to move or leave.
IBM once heralded the savings and productivity gains it won from its "Mobility Initiative." The company has also made untold millions over the past two decades selling software and consulting services, such as its Sametime instant messaging and voice products, to companies looking to support far-flung workforces.
Earlier this month, IBM touted research from IBM's Smarter Workforce Institute that found "remote workers... were highly engaged, more likely to consider their workplaces as innovative, happier about their job prospects and less stressed than their more traditional, office-bound colleagues."
But even as IBM was selling the magic of remote workforces to its customers, the company was dismantling its own "telework" program.
The story notes this might be a way to reduce staffing and avoid worker layoff protection laws at the same time.
Source: ArsTechnica
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Snotnose on Monday May 22 2017, @02:36AM (2 children)
3-4 years ago a friend said her financial advisor told her to buy IBM stock. I told her to run away, very far away. At the time IBM was firing, ooops, laying off, all their experienced staff and replacing them with cheap Indian labor. I was right. I was right the next year. Don't care what the financial's say, I'm guessing, based on the tech and the strategy, I'm safe in saying don't buy IBM stock in the foreseeable future.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday May 22 2017, @02:58AM
Checking if a company has competent staff and treat them decently. And if their board and CEO are of the engineering mindset is perhaps is a god way to evaluate if a company will do well or if it should be blanked?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 22 2017, @12:30PM
Its not just mere years of experience but departmental mix.
IBM (like GE and some others) pretty much have no on-shore IT anymore for example. If all the Java programmers are in India and all the engineers are in China then the only locals left are salespeople who need to be in the office to show off the whizzbang demos and conference rooms and have their boss sign and approve contracts and stuff, and ultra low level IT like the guy who replaces mice and keyboards, he can't replace your mouse from a mountain cabin in Montana he has to physically be nearby (well, technically, given how slowly big company IT operates, UPS would be fast enough not to be a limiter, but ...)
IBM, GE, companies like that are no longer American companies, they use the USA solely for some incorporation taxation stuff, they use the new york stock exchanges and banks for capital financing, they have sales offices in the USA just like they do in Nepal or WTF, and thats about it. So you're incorporated in Delaware, you need a physically present corporate agent in DE, you can't really run a sales office without being where the customers are, you need guys connected to the NYSE literally physically, thats about it...
Now you will get anecdotal BS about how some 200K non-american-ciitizen company is committed to the USA because they hired like two guys with CS degrees but its a rounding error, and corporations like to take rounding errors to zero.