I know most employees dont care about activist investors, but that is the real source of the RTO mess. For years IBM hasnt returned the best stock results. Its not a secret, IBM hired expensive consultants to find ways to defend against activists trying to fire board members. They are not threatened by lowly employees with tiny amounts of stock. RTO is just one of many line item for IBM’s defense. The stock went up, so they will pat themselves on the back as doing the right thing, even if employees hate them and leave. This is the reason why the CEO, HR and all execs dont give a cr-p about employees responses to RTO. The only thing that would change RTO at this point is bad publicity that makes the activist investors tell the Board of Directors this will lose them stock value and their board seats. But at the recent stock price, it would have to be really bad publicity to change their minds.
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It's really not that complicated. IBM's biggest clients are banks and financial services companies. Banks and financial services companies have a lot of exposure to commercial real estate. So the banks and financial services companies pressure IBM to enforce RTO with the hope that other companies see what IBM is doing and then play follow the leader. If it works, the banks and financial service companies CRE portfolios are rescued.
you may be given a brief reprieve from your destiny
I hear people about the whine, just get back to work. In my case we were told to go back to the office. The office was closed for renovation for 3 months. They were not letting anyone in. Thats not whining, its poor planning on IBM’s part. Are we going to get fired over office renovations?
Good luck to the new hires to have to work in such a great office environment!
That makes you think...
Post from TheLayoff.com
IBM wasn’t ready, they had no budget to buy chairs and office equipment. People stealing chairs from conference rooms, carrying personal monitors and keyboards from home. Oh, and they cut off the phone systems and won’t be turning them back on!!! Use slack, but nobody gets a phone number.
IBM sold half the office space during Covid. Now there are 100,000 people who have to sit in the office with only 50,000 seats. It’s find a seat first or be fired. Musical chairs, duck duck goose. Some offices are worse than others, 500 people to 40 seats. There is no way that makes sense.
RTO or be ousted. As an 'at will' employee, it's your choice or IBM will make it for you.
If you pulled stakes during the scamdemic/low rate/easy money/stimulus years to physically move with your 'remote job' and now you're being called back - sorry - not sorry. That was a fool's errand and you took it hook/line/sinker. LOL.
but still get back to the f!cking office and do some work
The real source of the RTO mess is "Shareholder Primacy" (Milton Friedman).
It is, in fact, the source of not just the RTO mess, but the RA mess, the PIP mess, the numerous division sales over the years and for that matter most of the utter mismanagement of the company over decades. It is what happens when management ultimately prioritizes shareholder returns and therefore free cash flow over every other priority a company might have. In a nutshell, IBM has maintained the cash cow (mainframes and enterprise software), but sold every other part of the company for cash.
The RTO thing is a sideshow. The real problem is that IBM management, the BOD and shareholders see little to no value in much of its business. Activist investors are merely a symptom of what is going on.