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IBM Businesses

IBM To Managers: Move Near an Office or Leave Company (bloomberg.com) 182

IBM delivered a companywide ultimatum to managers who are still working remotely: move near an office or leave the company. From a report: All US managers must immediately report to an office or client location at least three days a week "regardless of current work location status," according to a memo sent on Jan. 16 viewed by Bloomberg. Badge-in data will be used to "assess individual presence" and shared with managers and human resources, Senior Vice President John Granger wrote in the note. Those working remotely, other than employees with exceptions such as medical issues or military service, who don't live close enough to commute to a facility must relocate near an IBM office by the start of August, according to the memo. Managers who don't agree to relocate and are unable to secure a role that's approved to be remote must "separate from IBM," Granger wrote.
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IBM To Managers: Move Near an Office or Leave Company

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  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @03:51PM (#64198526)

    Will they get Badge-in data from an client location?
    What if the manager is not on local client day to day list?
    managers who may cover lot's of clients in an big area that may make being at one client location 3 days a week?

    Will they cover travel and expense for an manager to visit of the clients each month?

    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Does having a virtual meeting with a client qualify as being on-site at a client?

      I've not once had a customer want to have an on-site meeting when a virtual one will do. The exception would be all-day training or working within a facility (eg. a datacenter install).

      I'm sure IBM customers aren't going to like having IBM folks at their (mostly empty) office spaces...

      • I worked for IBM covering a large customer, they mandated me and a couple others be in their office so many days a week, often we were the only people in the office. I would go into a conference room for a meeting and end up being the only person there, everyone else was remote. I don't know if this is still the case but I was shocked how many IBM employees camped at their biggest customers offices.
    • What if the client is doing WFH? Is the manager assigned to the client still required to go to client site?

      So many questions......

  • Job Openings at IBM (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TrentTheThief ( 118302 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @03:52PM (#64198528)

    IBM wants to force employees back to the office. Why?

    The last few years have proven that an office presence isn't necessary for business to continue profitably. Otherwise, IBM would already be in dire straits.

    80's mentality applied to the 20's. Wise move, IBM. Good luck with that recruiting drive.

    • by Vermifax ( 3687 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @04:23PM (#64198694)

      Its a lay off without laying people off. Potentially also legal age discrimination since only managers are being told to do this who are generally older than non-managers.

      I remember IBM coming in and telling a bunch of people near retirement before they were outsourced "Only 50% of IBMers have been with the company more than 5 years" as if that was a positive.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by pete6677 ( 681676 )

        Yep. That's exactly it. This move is designed to drive people out of the company. IBM is always terminating US employees in favor of overseas cheap labor. This move just makes it easier.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      The last few years have proven that an office presence isn't necessary

      No such thing has been "proven". There has been evidence in both directions. The jury is out, but many big companies have looked at the evidence and decided they want people back in the office, at least some of the time.

      for business to continue profitably.

      Businesses don't strive to earn just enough profit to stay in business. They strive to maximize profit.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        The last few years have proven that an office presence isn't necessary

        No such thing has been "proven". There has been evidence in both directions.

        Very likely because some jobs work better in person, and other jobs are fine remote.

        But the arguments on slashdot seem to always assume all jobs are alike.

        • As a former IT person that ended up becoming a professional janitor (and consequently ending up with better pay, benefits, hours, pension, and work life balance) I find amusement in seeing what is "normal" or " average" to a lot of the people that post here.

        • Slashdot assume it is common knowledge there are only three types of careers:
          - Software developers writing code
          - People learning code to become software developers
          *sometimes* part-time while working on some less important job (police, doctors, aeronautics safety inspector) because the world is unfair and we do not have Universal Income yet.
          - Uneducated masses who do not yet understand how learning code would improve their life and make them a better person.
          As a group we are alw

    • IBM wants to force employees back to the office. Why?

      They want to "maximize" productivity and are mad about how difficult it is to do when everyone is at home.

      Let say they give you a task on a Monday with a deadline of EOD the following Monday, but you finish that task by early Thursday morning. Without any motivation to do so, the company wants you channel your inner Oliver Twist and be all begging to your manager with cries of "Please sir, may I have some more?"

      If you're in the office you have to at least make an effort to look busy when you're not, but wh

      • So you actually think the better thing for everyone is to have all employees "make an effort to look busy when they're not"???
      • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        but when you're at home you can sit with your laptop next to you and simply wait until EOD Monday to hand it in and just enjoy a couple days of relaxing

        People do this in offices too. The amount of times i've seen office workers on random sites (eg facebook) all day.

        The same people who finish early and get to relax will also work later sometimes if they need to, give and take balances out, but they won't stay late if they need to catch a train to get home.

    • Wise move, IBM.

      And Google. And Facebook. And Nvidia. And Apple. And everyone else.

      The last few years have proven that an office presence isn't necessary for business to continue profitably.

      Based on what now? Pretty much every company that can force employees back in the office without losing them is doing so.

      Companies like money, and real estate is expensive. If they could get the same or better productivity having employees foot the bill for real estate they would. When it comes to money, there's no way these things happen on the whim of some "80s" thinking. Companies have armies of bean counters that evaluate this sort of t

  • by redmid17 ( 1217076 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @03:53PM (#64198544)
    IBM (IBM) stock surged Thursday to its highest level in more than a decade, boosted by the tech giant's better-than-expected fourth quarter results and the progress of its artificial intelligence initiatives.

    Sure makes sense to fire people for what is working and potentially eke out that extra .2% earning. But hey what do I or the workforce know about productivity and remote work? Will never cease to amaze me how f*cking dumb companies can be for no real reason. They don't need to but golly they sure will plow right ahead:

    For 2024, Krishna said the company expects revenue to grow in the mid-single digits while generating $12 billion in free cash flow.

    This is from their earnings call last week too: https://www.investors.com/news... [investors.com].
    • by Pieroxy ( 222434 )

      Are you saying that a company that grows cannot perform any better?

      • by Bert64 ( 520050 )

        Not by doing things which are unpopular with staff no.
        The best will leave because they can easily get another remote job elsewhere. The least useful ones will go back to the office because they fear being fired.

    • Sure makes sense to fire people for what is working and potentially eke out that extra .2% earning.

      Except that doesn't happen. Slashdot had an article from just today showing that butts-in-seats is no better than working from home. Die, IBM, DIE!

  • by xack ( 5304745 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @03:55PM (#64198550)
    Mainframes were designed to have remote terminals, which allowed you to work in a different place.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Mainframes were designed to have remote terminals, which allowed you to work in a different place.

      If a worker does something without a manager breathing down their necks and looking over their shoulder, was the work ever done at all? We all know the truth, but in the era we live in, truth and facts mean very, very little. What matters is management's feelings and instincts. And their feeling are hurt they don't have anyone to shove around during the day-to-day, and their instincts are telling them it's harder to intimidate remote workers. *BAM* Must come back to the office for, uh, productivity initiati

    • IBM doesn't really believe in their own product.

    • by nucrash ( 549705 )

      Does IBM even make those anymore? Does IBM make anything anymore?

  • Who still uses IBM? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Midnight_Falcon ( 2432802 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @03:56PM (#64198560)
    In 25+ years in tech, I've never seen IBM being actively used in any environment. The old saying early in my career was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM," but by that time it had changed to "Nobody ever got fired for buying Dell," because nobody was buying IBM. Am I missing something or is IBM just running a bunch of legacy clients/enterprise environments that have decades old vendor lock-in?
    • Government is still a heavy IBM user.

    • by Junta ( 36770 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @04:09PM (#64198628)

      The short answer is mostly locked in clients. Also Red Hat customers now, since IBM bought them. I chuckle when I go to get a state inspection and see the oil change place's point of sale is focused around an 3270 terminal emulator. Also, I remember a car dealership or two where they were plopping the numbers into an 3270 hosted application. I don't think anyone starting a *new* endeavor will choose mainframe, but there's plenty of relatively ancient choices still in play.

      Fun anecdote, I know someone who has worked at Red Hat for years. Before IBM bought them, he had never ever touched a mainframe. After acquisition by IBM, his job was changed to basically "mainframe-ify" various RedHat projects and his job is now entirely mainframe focused, to try to let their mainframe customers know they aren't missing out of any of this 'cool new open source technology the kids are talking about'

      IBM is of course not just mainframe, but generally that's their holy grail of a technology segment done right for them: lock in with minimal competitive pressure. Other segments they tend to at least *act* like they have mainframe level lock in. If that play doesn't seem to work out in a particular business unit, they shut down, sell off, or spin off that business.

    • WebSphere on AIX is the only encounter with IBM hardware/software in my professional life... But I have always worked at the SOHO / small business level of IT.

      I think they are still pretty big in the retail space even if you don't see that many IBM point of sale devices anymore.

    • In 25+ years in tech, I've never seen IBM being actively used in any environment. The old saying early in my career was "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM," but by that time it had changed to "Nobody ever got fired for buying Dell," because nobody was buying IBM. Am I missing something or is IBM just running a bunch of legacy clients/enterprise environments that have decades old vendor lock-in?

      Big ERP systems still use a lot of IBM iron.

    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      I've seen it in a couple places (healthcare, mostly) and I've worked for an MSP that worked primarily as an IBM reseller of services/equipment. There's a lot of IBM still in banking, finance, and energy, as well as other large legacy industries. Basically, for the businesses that got into computing early on and started using mainframes early on, they're still using a lot of those same technologies. Plenty of IBM mainframes out there running LPARs with poorly performing Linux distros on them.

      • by Tomahawk ( 1343 )

        IBM also tend to have great support for their hardware. We had a 12-year-old server and we could still get parts for it when they failed. Other companies' products had failures with they were 3 years' old and the hardware had to be replaced because the company couldn't supply parts.

        So they have that going for them. But you pay for that. IBM know how to charge! You can get a product that will be support for as long as you use it, or you can get a cheap product. Pick one.

    • Years ago I worked in a data center that used the IBM System 360. I liked the fact that from the operator console I could adjust what percent of the cpu cycles an application was allowed to use. Software hogging the cpu could be throttled back.

      • I unfortunately wasn't alive during the time the System 360 shipped, and I never saw one in the wild by the time I got into tech in the 90s. Which still begs the question, as nice as it may have been in its day...who would still use such a thing!?
  • How much do IBM employees love their jobs? Now they have to decide. Put up or shut up.

    I would very much love to learn what percentage just walk away.

  • Can't be seen as not needing it, that would look like they misjudged. So time to start cracking the whip.

  • Disgusting (Score:4, Informative)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @04:03PM (#64198590)

    The trend of companies trying to push employees out while at the same time trying to not providing severance is, frankly, disgusting.

    The bias shown against remote workers is both irrational and discriminatory. I'd be curious if they've done any sort of study as to the efficacy of remote workers before doing this RIF.

    Meanwhile, study after study shows that remote workers are up to 30% more productive on average than in-office workers (often while working fewer hours). We've got foreign (to the US) companies now trying to gobble up top talent in the US to work remote roles, too - even at full rate, it's cheaper than paying the equivalent person in eg. Europe.

    • Re:Disgusting (Score:5, Informative)

      by Junta ( 36770 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @04:17PM (#64198664)

      The "funny" part is that IBM already took measures to mitigate severance:
      "IBM has severely cut severance pay to one month total, no matter how many years of service the employee worked"

      So to review:
      -IBM hasn't kept pace with base salary
      -IBM bonus structure has always been unreliable, low at best, and the criteria used are decided *after* the year is done to rationalize whatever bonus decision they wanted to do.
      -IBM used to have a compelling stock purchase plan, which they canned for something useless
      -IBM used to 401k match, now they don't
      -IBM capped severance at 1 month (you used to be able to count on up to 6 months with enough time in)
      -IBM canceled the patent bonus program
      -IBM is telling people to come in 3 days a week or they are going to lose their job, even people who have been remote for decades.

      So the takeaway is obviously IBM never wants anyone to ever work for them again, and would really like all their current employees to quit. If they can get rid of all those pesky employees, they can just have pure profit... Amazing thing is a fair amount of their customers might not even notice the difference if updates and product changes stopped happening.

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        So the takeaway is obviously IBM never wants anyone to ever work for them again, and would really like all their current employees to quit.

        Eventually, IBM will be the perfect company, having achieved corporate purity — no employees, no products, and a boatload of money.

    • It's just not making the news much.

      Relocate or quit.

      https://coincodex.com/article/... [coincodex.com]

      https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1q... [thelayoff.com]

      It's a shit show. I don't work there but know someone that does (until pension benefit date if they can make it).

  • Last time I checked, a company cant “order someone to quit”. Well, they can, but the employee is under no obligation to comply.

    Look, IBM, if you want to be all 1980s-style and rigidly demand butts in seats, that’s fine. It’s your company. You set the rules. Man up, grow a pair, and FIRE THE PEOPLE YOU DONT WANT WORKING FOR YOU. This namby-pamby “ waaahhhhh you better be here or we’ll report yooouuuuuuuu to HHHrRRRRrrrrr” is pretty weak looking.

    28 US states
    • IBM has a relocation policy, so that would also cost them money... If they changed it then many of the people they want to retain would start looking elsewhere immediately.

      • IBM has a relocation policy, so that would also cost them money... If they changed it then many of the people they want to retain would start looking elsewhere immediately.

        I hadn't heard of one in years. I left in 2008 when I was told to move from Chicago to Dubuque for the data center there. No relocation package was offered. And to add injury to insult, they were going to reduce my salary for "Cost of Living" adjustment. I asked my boss for a voluntary separation package instead if he was given any to reduce his headcount. As luck would have it, my account contract ended and I got a separation.

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @04:12PM (#64198642)
    they do this periodically using a variety of excuses and tricks. I remember there was a big famous purge of managers back in the 80s that a lot of people (now old farts) got super excited about. Years later I looked it up and yep, it was just age discrimination.
    • I would guess remote workers skew young. Older ones already built their life around the job.
      • by Junta ( 36770 )

        In IBM's case, a number of office sites have closed and they had residual employees from those sites hang on as remote employees.

        They also have a lot of folks whose career was based on travelling like 80-90% of the time and it just made zero sense for them to be based anywhere in particular relative to their work.

        During the pandemic, I know quite a few people who pulled the trigger on starting their planned "retirement lifestyle" and moved somewhere well away from their "site". I'd imagine IBM has a fair s

      • by Vermifax ( 3687 )

        Except these are managers, which skew older.

        They did this like 14 years ago same thing, forced everyone to relocate to near one of their geoplex locations, and if you didn't you were quitting. Mostly affected people with families and houses.

        • Except these are managers, which skew older.

          They did this like 14 years ago same thing, forced everyone to relocate to near one of their geoplex locations, and if you didn't you were quitting. Mostly affected people with families and houses.

          As I understand it, there is a three-prong legal framework for adjudication of discriminatory workplace policies and tools. The court hears argument/evidence to find three facts:
          1) The policy or tool discriminates - whether intentionally or unintentionally (through a disparate impact regardless of its surface neutrality).
          2) The policy or tool serves a legitimate business need essential for proper functioning. (No men in spandex shorts and bare midriff are hired at Hooters.)
          3) There is no alternative policy

      • to move while WFH was a thing, in preparation for retirement. So it's not a young person thing. If anything young folk are more likely to live nearby because they tend to want to live in the big cities where these kind of office building are. It's the old folk who are looking to retire to the country as it were that tended to depend on WFH.
  • by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @04:15PM (#64198658) Homepage
    Everyone has had their say, if only there were some way to stop seeing these same articles. Yes, the pandemic is over and by now your company and their company should have solved this one way or the other. Stop the dragging of feet already.
  • As I watched the IBM executives destroy the company, and create many, many , many, many empty wastelands of campuses (future video game stuff)....

    IBM c-series and 99% of those claiming to be "important".... please do the right thing and eliminate the root cause of the problem.

    Sincerely, "the people who made you all that money"
    • They could run IBM on the patents alone for decades if they weren't being asshats. They've been selling off divisions for decades. They had 433k workers in 2012, now they've got half that.

  • by Tomahawk ( 1343 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @04:22PM (#64198690) Homepage

    Send me your ID card and I'll swipe you in for $10 per swipe!

  • by big-giant-head ( 148077 ) on Monday January 29, 2024 @04:31PM (#64198722)

    They know they can shed 5-10% of their us workforce this way, and they don't have to go through all the paperwork of an actual 'layoff' . Managers first ... then after that they will give the ultimatum to everyone else . IBM has been adrift for years. Waiting for someone like to M$ to buy It's IP and put it out of it's misery.

  • What are the odds that you move for IBM and then get your job moved overseas?

    And is that before or after you suffer racist discrimination?

    It's bad enough I got suckered into an SX/16 with an MCA bus! That was a shitton of paper route money, just to have to replace it with a Gateway the next year.

    Man, what a waste of what could have been.

  • Managers need to be in the office, so they can still pretend that they are not just dead weight to the company. As long going back to the office is mandatory for them, and just them (as opposed to those who get actual, useful work done) that should be OK.
  • IBM is just holding on to its scraps of lock-in at this point, guess theyâ(TM)re getting desperate.
  • After that, they deserve to wither and croak out
  • IBM is a dinosaur that deserves to die.

  • IBM business used to be selling computer systems. Then they built up a massive portfolio of patents. Massive in sheer numbers, if not actual value. Along the way they collected a lot of commercial real estate. Hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars worth.. I don't think this is about productivity or laying off workers. This is about property values.
  • This isn't new and IBM certainly isn't alone in the practice.

    AT&T is currently doing the exact same thing they did back in January of 2017.

    Back then they called it " Collaboration Zones " where they decreed they wanted everyone to be physically located at nine different hub locations around the country. If you were not located near one of them, you were simply laid off. They let people go without any thought to what they did, what value or skills they brought to the Company or what the potential fallo

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