IBM Bans Remote Work

June 22, 2017

The tech blog SiliconBeat reveals a startling development in tech-related employment in, “IBM: So Much for Working from Home.” Thousands of professionals who have built their lives around their remote-work arrangements are now being required to come into the office. For many, the shift would mean packing up and moving closer to one of the company’s locations. As writer Rex Crum puts it:

That’s right. Find your way to an office cubicle, or hit the bricks. The Wall Street Journal reported that IBM began instituting the new you-can’t-work-from-home policy this week, and that the company is ‘quietly dismantling’ the program that has been in place for decades. The Journal said the retrenchment on its employees working remotely was being done so that IBM could ‘improve collaboration and accelerate the pace of work.’ It also happens to be taking place not long after IBM reported its 20th-straight quarter of declining year-over-year revenue. Legendary all-time investor Warren Buffett also said this month that Berkshire Hathaway has cut its holdings in IBM by one-third from the 81 million shares the company owned earlier this year.

But will herding all their talent into their buildings really solve IBM’s financial woes? Not according to this Forbes article. Crum recalls that Yahoo made the same move in 2013, when Marissa Mayer put a stop to remote work at that company. (How has that been going?) Will more organizations follow?

Cynthia Murrell, June 22, 2017

Comments

One Response to “IBM Bans Remote Work”

  1. Marc Lesniewski on June 29th, 2017 7:54 am

    Reagrds,

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