IBM Bans Work-from-Home Policy
IBM management has decided to end the regime of work from home, a strong and employee-friendly flexible work arrangement that it once touted as one of its recipes for success. Here on, employees who worked from home will be asked to report to regional offices and get back to the office, non-compliance of which will lead them to lose their jobs. This is the end of a fruitful and productive era from way back in 1994, when it leveraged the Internet to allow this arrangement.
The company made the announcement stating that the ways of work were changing, and the company needed to keep pace with the advancements in digital and software. The company plans to bring together small and self-directed agile teams, making it necessary for employees to be at location. IBM went on to say that while some exceptions to the new rule may be made, employees who do not comply will end up being fired.
This is a U-turn taken by a company, which till not-so-long ago was espousing the advantages of this very work-from-home arrangement. The talent repercussions will be humongous and experts expect some critical top talent leaving the organizations on account of this sudden change. Besides, forcing employees who are used to working from home back to the office will create anger and resentment—not a great thing for engaging employees. One can only wait and watch how the new policy spans out for a legacy population that is used to the comfort and convenience of this work option.
The company had last analyzed the impact of its work-from-home policy in 2007, when a reported 40% of its then 400,000 employees worldwide worked from home without access to a traditional office. It was amongst the pioneers in the quest for a “global enterprise,” where people from all over the globe could work together to achieve umbrella goals. IBM was amongst the first to leverage the true power of the Internet by encouraging remote working way back in 1995. In fact, the company has never had an unprofitable year since then. The same policy has provided IBM with significant financial gains—from 1995 to 2008, the company claimed that it reduced office space by 78 million square feet, with 58 million square feet of this space being sold for a profit of $1.9 billion.
IBM is not the only company to do away with the employee benefit. Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer had sparked controversy four years ago by doing away with the Yahoo work-from-home policy and bringing everyone back to the office.
