Big blues: IBM's remote-worker crackdown is company-wide, including its engineers

Re: It's Baffling Me

Like that's going to help. Apparently, IBM isn't very good any paying people

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/cost-to-fix-phoenix-pay-system-25m-and-rising-official-1.3042081

Re: It's Baffling Me

... and have cover sheets! ;-)

Re: It's Baffling Me

And that the new coversheets go on all of the TPS reports before they go out.

Re: Improving morale? Eventually

I agree with you up to your last statement which is totally irrelevant because this was most probably thought up under Obama.

Re: Improving morale? Eventually

"Welcome to Trump's Amerika."

Really? And nobody ever did this kind of thing before Trump was President? Idiot.

Re: Improving morale? Eventually

Actually Trump was complaining loudly about this sort of thing all through his campaign, and promises to "do something" about it. Whether he can or not, (I think not, personally), remains to be seen. It's probably one of the main reasons he was elected.

But don't let that get in the way of your knee-jerk.

Re: Improving morale? Eventually

"The beatings will continue until moral improves"

Re: Improving morale? Eventually

Meg Whitman started doing this at HPE several years ago.

Re: Backflip

I laughed a little when reading your comment about having your "two year anniversary of freedom". I feel exactly the same way. In January I celebrated my four year anniversary of freedom :). I couldn't be happier that I finally, after 12 years, left the dying dinosaur. Now I work for a company that cares about it's employees. We have no eClaim, no report-to-chains spanning five pages, no PBC ratings and no useless middle management.

But is this really something new? Already when I worked for IBM we used to talk about IBM as "I've Been Moved". IBM has never ever really cared about it's work force. It's just a numbers game for the executives. It doesn't matter that the work force consists of actual people with feelings and lives outside of IBM. The only thing that counts are the stock owners and the stock price.

Re: Taking the piss....

? I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here.

Re: telecommuting marketing staff

I've seen people in an office who take a half hour on a restroom break. One minute in the restroom, 29 minutes stopping at half a dozen offices/cubicles along the way

(Slightly playing devil's advocate here...) Some people just need face-to-face contact with colleagues, rather than IMs, Emails, etc. On a recent management course, we told encouraged to get off our butts and go and talk to people rather than just send soulless emails.

Re: telecommuting marketing staff

My experience and my colleagues is that part time telecommuting is the best. You have a good deal of latitude and still have some face time with colleagues and management.

Re: telecommuting marketing staff

Our entire company is remote - we neither own nor rent office space anywhere in the world. We all work either from home or clients' offices when on projects.

You are correct that it doesn't work for everyone, but we are a very specialized group and hire specifically for the skills to be able to work as independently as possible in our new hires. With hipchat, Skype for Business, and many other applications allowing us to work together we can all get shit all around the world (we have people based in the US, Canada, Mexico, Croatia, Serbia, Australia, NZ, and the UK).

Wasting time and money to go sit in a cube in an office park is a complete deal breaker for me in terms of my career - I put up with being on client sites for a week or two at a time because they pay handsomely for that time and therefore use it wisely.

Re: telecommuting marketing staff

If telecommuters are slacking off when at home, it's their managers who are failing in their jobs to manage their staff

When I was telecommuting, I would usually get a days work done in about 3 hours and then I would slack off to not give the game away. Getting the work done and be out of there early to do interesting things is very motivating.

What managers do not like about telecommuters is the nagging suspicion that their "management" or maybe rather interference, bullshit meetings, annoying colleagues, that good work is only rewarded with more work reduces motivation and efficiency to a significant degree, so, maybe if they were not there, the business would perform much better.

Re: telecommuting marketing staff

We bought a new house early last year, and as a result both my sister and her family and my mum came to visit (which they hadn't done for a few years). Both were visibly surprised and impressed that I got up every day and went to work in my home office and actually did real work. I think their experience of remote working mirrored yours, but I would not consider a job in an office with a commute without at least $100,000 extra to pay for the trouble. I get 2-3x more done in a work day in my home office than in a client or company office.

Re: telecommuting marketing staff

Some people just have to eliminate distractions to telecommute successfully. That means no techie toys in the home office, email notifications off, checking email only once or twice per day, no social media, IM, RSS, or computer-game windows open, &c. Some of those restrictions are untenable if you work in a demand-driven job (helldesk, product support, etc.).

And, yes, some people are just temperamentally ill-suited to telecommuting.

Re: telecommuting marketing staff

I work from home most of the time, and whilst I agree that it doesn't suit everyone I can definitely say I get more done.

In fact, the reason I get to work from home so much is that I get a *lot* more done than I do in the office (which can be a double-edged sword though - occupational burn out and all that).

These days I look at a day in the office as a 'day-off' (in comparison).