I should not try to be overly dictatorial about that.”
Yes, yes, because AK has plenty of other things (tyrannical vaccine mandates, etc.) to be overly dictatorial about.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-don-t-care-what-time-of-day-my-staff-work-says-ibm-boss-arvind-krishna-vg30tbftk
Starting work at five o’clock in the morning, or turning up at the office shortly before lunchtime? Clocking off mid-afternoon, or burning the midnight oil? Employees at one of the world’s largest computer companies can rest assured: their boss no longer cares.
Arvind Krishna, chief executive and chairman of IBM, is the latest high-profile industry leader to call time on fixed working hours. Whether employees get the job done is more important than when they do it, he has concluded.
Krishna, 59, told The New York Times: “Why should I, as an employer, care as long as you can get the work done and you’re highly productive? I should not try to be overly dictatorial about that.”
For IBM, which dates back to 1911 and has some 346,000 staff across the world, such an approach stands in stark contrast with its reputation for a regimented office culture over the decades. A notoriously strict dress code for employees — once reprimanded for wearing loafers, rather than wingtip shoes — was loosened in the Nineties.
It is adapting to new ways of working amid a global shift, accelerated by the onset of the pandemic. Many months of working predominantly from home under Covid-19 restrictions have prompted office-based employers to reconsider the future of their operations.
Some of the world’s leading businesses are nevertheless determined to reignite the office culture upon which their empires were built. At Google, for example, most staff continue to work remotely. Sundar Pichai, chief executive of the company and its owner, Alphabet, misses days when he could stand up during an in-person meeting, approach a whiteboard and illustrate his point for others to see.
Remote working is “taking a toll” some 20 months after Covid-19 first emptied offices across the world, Pichai, 49, told The New York Times. “We are working on some borrowed time, in terms of working on memories of the relationships you have and the connections you have.”
Alphabet, which also owns YouTube, has a global workforce of about 150,000 staff.
Average office occupancy across leading cities in America now stands at almost 38 per cent, according to the latest weekly report by Kastle Systems. Cities in Texas, such as Houston and Dallas, are approaching 50 per cent. San Francisco is just above a quarter.
•Portugal has banned bosses from texting and emailing staff out of working hours as part of new “right to rest” laws. Companies with more than ten staff could face fines if they contact employees outside their contracted hours.