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Another Pushy Female Executive Zaps Work From Home

SDET

SDET

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Is there still a place for people who want to concentrate on what they do, paying close attention to details? The open cube concept is poison to focus and concentration. "Collaboration" and concentration are essentially mutually exclusive. This reeks of misandry given that women are more social and men are more technical.

IBM, one of the technology-sector giants that pioneered the concept of allowing its employees to work from home, is pulling the plug on its remote-working policy in an effort to create a more-collaborative environment for its approximately 380,000 workers around the world.
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“It’s incredibly bad PR, especially for the millennial and younger generations, for whom work-life balance is a priority in recruiting and retention,” Dukes said.
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IBM tells remote employees to get back to the office
 
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SDET said:
Is there still a place for people who want to concentrate on what they do, paying close attention to details? The open cube concept is poison to focus and concentration. "Collaboration" and concentration are essentially mutually exclusive.

IBM tells remote employees to get back to the office
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I understand the need to collaborate sometimes in person, but IBM shouldn't pull the plug completely on telecommuting. Instead they should have collaboration days, as necessary. In today's age there is no reason to place someone at a cubical for 8 hours a day. It's been proven that teleworking increases efficiency and production as well as morale. Not every industry can telework I know, but those that can should continue. IBM is taking a step back and it is going to hurt them in the long run I think, especially with finding new talent.
 
SDET said:
Is there still a place for people who want to concentrate on what they do, paying close attention to details? The open cube concept is poison to focus and concentration. "Collaboration" and concentration are essentially mutually exclusive. This reeks of misandry given that women are more social and men are more technical.






IBM tells remote employees to get back to the office
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I believe that if you can work from home, we can probably automate you out of work in a few years. Operations really have little use for humans anymore except to exploit their skills in interpersonal communication and facilitation. Anything heady can be done by machine...if not now, soon.

Value today is not in what you do--which would be all that can be done at home--but in what you know and can use to address problems on the fly. 90% of my job is waiting for a problem to develop and nipping it in the bud before it becomes a crisis.
 
While I agree that the cubicle environment is distracting, perhaps IBM has found that people working from home are even more distracted.
 
SDET said:
Is there still a place for people who want to concentrate on what they do, paying close attention to details? The open cube concept is poison to focus and concentration. "Collaboration" and concentration are essentially mutually exclusive. This reeks of misandry given that women are more social and men are more technical.






IBM tells remote employees to get back to the office
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Too bad, working from home is great if you're organized. It's not for everybody though.

Oh and what on earth does this article have to do with gender-issues ?
 
calamity said:
I believe that if you can work from home, we can probably automate you out of work in a few years. Humans really have little use anymore except interpersonal communication and facilitation. Anything heady can be done by machine...if not now, soon.

Value today is not in what you do--which would be all that can be done at home--but in what you know and can use to address problems on the fly. 90% of my job is waiting for a problem to develop and nipping it in the bud before it becomes a crisis.
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Even leaving automation aside, if your job can be done from home then why not just give it to someone in a country with lower labor costs?
 
IBM is floundering, revenues are down every quarter. They're grasping at anything to turn it around. This is probably more of a trying to 'improve moral' move than anything else. I have no idea what this has to do with ' pushy female exec' though. Whatever.

Anyway over the past 20+ years IBM has moved over 200,000 jobs overseas, there's less than 100,000 employees left in the US, where in the early 90's there were over 300,000. Many college grads are already running away for IBM for that reason. So I doubt this new order will make an impact 1 way or another. I don't know how it will be seen overseas.
 
Cisero said:
Too bad, working from home is great if you're organized. It's not for everybody though.

Oh and what on earth does this article have to do with gender-issues ?
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Many men don't do well if a noise-free environment isn't available.
 
When working from home there is nothing preventing distractions except the worker's own "work ethic."

Here is a telling argument for ending the program and re-centralizing the work (from the article):

IBM’s decision on ending remote working is taking place not long after the company reported its 20th-straight quarter of declining year-over-year revenue.
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That's five years of declining revenue. Not a good sign for decentralized work, IMO a direct effect of the millennial ideology of "me first, what about my personal needs" making work productivity a secondary or tertiary priority when working from home.
 
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Skeptic Bob said:
Even leaving automation aside, if your job can be done from home then why not just give it to someone in a country with lower labor costs?
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Those countries have a much less diligent work culture. If a company likes copy-and-paste programming and low-thought solutions, then OK, I guess. I would say that open-cube concept offices are more compatible with outsourcing.
 
SDET said:
Many men don't do well if a noise-free environment isn't available.
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Do you have a study link ? A research paper maybe ? I'm curious. For me, too much noise at the office is a performance-killer for all genders.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
Even leaving automation aside, if your job can be done from home then why not just give it to someone in a country with lower labor costs?
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Very good point. I have an old friend who works I/T. He was employed by AT&T for 20 years or so. On day, they told him he can work from home. A few months later, they sent him an email telling him he wasn't needed at all anymore. Coincidence? I think not.

Turns out his old job is now being done in India.
 
Cisero said:
Do you have a study link ? A research paper maybe ? I'm curious. For me, too much noise at the office is a performance-killer for all genders.
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I have a pair of noise suppressing headphones for exactly that purpose.
 
All of my people work from home, including me. Real estate is expensive, so if I don't have any, I don't have to pay for it. I have sales people and field engineers. That requires real people that are required to travel. So I won't be replacing anyone with machines or foreigners. At least not until a good Android is invented.

What was said about telework not being cut out for everyone is correct. I let go about 20% of new hires because they just can't get their priorities right.

I don't know what IBM's situation is for their teleworkers. I expect my people to be out with customers, so it would not make sense for me to have a building as it would be empty most of the time. Maybe they don't have customers. :)
 
Skeptic Bob said:
While I agree that the cubicle environment is distracting, perhaps IBM has found that people working from home are even more distracted.
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In my industry (insurance), people who work from home are more productive. It could be that people in the tech sector lack the responsibility and independence required to work from home.
 
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