IBM issues a RTO for managers and executives - but they have no offices

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:OP here - it seems short sighted that they are willing to lose a significant number of high paying (and high producing) managers and executives in order to save money. My BIL makes a lot of money but he also is one of the highest generating managers for IBM in what he sells. He routinely makes 100-150% of his quota each quarter and so does his team.

He is going to walk if they force him to go to one of those offices since he lives nowhere near any of those offices and is not willing to relocate his whole family. He has spoken with his team of 15 and of those 15 approximately 75% said they will leave as well. Seems sort of ridiculous to me but I guess IBM is willing to take that risk.

He can walk but the grass isn't greener on the other side. Majority of companies are now starting down the RTO path.

OP - totally agree but my sister (his wife) works for a partner of IBM and they don't have a RTO and she makes WAY more than he does. He would be recruited quickly because he is VERY good at his job. My sisters office only has one headquarters in Florida. All of the sales people are spread out across the country and then travel to see clients when they need to. Otherwise they work from home.

A lot of companies have retracted on RTO over the last few years. No guarantee that your sisters employer doesn't get acquired which could lead to a policy change.

OP here - yes that is true. But most RTO is due to the fact that the company has empty office space they need to fill. My sister has never been in a job where her company had any office space. They have always worked from home (when not on the road).

You seem really invested in your BIL career...

I think the OP might be Two Jobs Guy.

OP here - haha no I am not. Jeff can confirm. I didn't even read the 2 job guy thread.

I am very close with my sister (we talk multiple times a day) and she tells me this stuff because she is stressed about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - it seems short sighted that they are willing to lose a significant number of high paying (and high producing) managers and executives in order to save money. My BIL makes a lot of money but he also is one of the highest generating managers for IBM in what he sells. He routinely makes 100-150% of his quota each quarter and so does his team.

He is going to walk if they force him to go to one of those offices since he lives nowhere near any of those offices and is not willing to relocate his whole family. He has spoken with his team of 15 and of those 15 approximately 75% said they will leave as well. Seems sort of ridiculous to me but I guess IBM is willing to take that risk.

He can walk but the grass isn't greener on the other side. Majority of companies are now starting down the RTO path.

OP - totally agree but my sister (his wife) works for a partner of IBM and they don't have a RTO and she makes WAY more than he does. He would be recruited quickly because he is VERY good at his job. My sisters office only has one headquarters in Florida. All of the sales people are spread out across the country and then travel to see clients when they need to. Otherwise they work from home.

A lot of companies have retracted on RTO over the last few years. No guarantee that your sisters employer doesn't get acquired which could lead to a policy change.

OP here - yes that is true. But most RTO is due to the fact that the company has empty office space they need to fill. My sister has never been in a job where her company had any office space. They have always worked from home (when not on the road).

You seem really invested in your BIL career...

I think the OP might be Two Jobs Guy.

OP here - haha no I am not. Jeff can confirm. I didn't even read the 2 job guy thread.

I am very close with my sister (we talk multiple times a day) and she tells me this stuff because she is stressed about it.

No idea why she is stressed -- she makes more money, they clearly are wealthy if he has been a top salesman at IBM for 2 decades, and able to live remotely so didn't have to buy for short commute that 99% of us plebes have to do. And she thinks he will be recruited by her company in a jif, so she really needs perspective about "stressful"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - it seems short sighted that they are willing to lose a significant number of high paying (and high producing) managers and executives in order to save money. My BIL makes a lot of money but he also is one of the highest generating managers for IBM in what he sells. He routinely makes 100-150% of his quota each quarter and so does his team.

He is going to walk if they force him to go to one of those offices since he lives nowhere near any of those offices and is not willing to relocate his whole family. He has spoken with his team of 15 and of those 15 approximately 75% said they will leave as well. Seems sort of ridiculous to me but I guess IBM is willing to take that risk.

He can walk but the grass isn't greener on the other side. Majority of companies are now starting down the RTO path.

RTO is over. We're doing what we're doing and that's it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He is a crappy employee.

My friends Dad worked at IBM his whole career and was near the Melville Long Island office and he had to move locations.

He picked the location he wanted to retire at and located there and company was generous with moving costs.

Raleigh is a wonderful location, great weather and lower cost of living and some great instate schools.

Poughkeepsie is a wonderful location, amazing schools, very cute area. Suburb of NYC. You can zoom into Manhattan on the train or hop in car head upstate quickly for sking and fall foliage

Your friend’s dad probably worked for IBM when lifetime employment was their policy. They moved people around to different locations, but they wouldn’t let someone go without a cause. It changed in the 90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - it seems short sighted that they are willing to lose a significant number of high paying (and high producing) managers and executives in order to save money. My BIL makes a lot of money but he also is one of the highest generating managers for IBM in what he sells. He routinely makes 100-150% of his quota each quarter and so does his team.

He is going to walk if they force him to go to one of those offices since he lives nowhere near any of those offices and is not willing to relocate his whole family. He has spoken with his team of 15 and of those 15 approximately 75% said they will leave as well. Seems sort of ridiculous to me but I guess IBM is willing to take that risk.

He can walk but the grass isn't greener on the other side. Majority of companies are now starting down the RTO path.

RTO is over. We're doing what we're doing and that's it.

I mean sure, RTO 100% is over, but many companies are abandoning 100% WFH. Look at InVision, a remote first company, poof!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - it seems short sighted that they are willing to lose a significant number of high paying (and high producing) managers and executives in order to save money. My BIL makes a lot of money but he also is one of the highest generating managers for IBM in what he sells. He routinely makes 100-150% of his quota each quarter and so does his team.

He is going to walk if they force him to go to one of those offices since he lives nowhere near any of those offices and is not willing to relocate his whole family. He has spoken with his team of 15 and of those 15 approximately 75% said they will leave as well. Seems sort of ridiculous to me but I guess IBM is willing to take that risk.

He can walk but the grass isn't greener on the other side. Majority of companies are now starting down the RTO path.

RTO is over. We're doing what we're doing and that's it.

I mean sure, RTO 100% is over, but many companies are abandoning 100% WFH. Look at InVision, a remote first company, poof!

We are where we are. The needle’s not going to move very far in one direction or the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here - it seems short sighted that they are willing to lose a significant number of high paying (and high producing) managers and executives in order to save money. My BIL makes a lot of money but he also is one of the highest generating managers for IBM in what he sells. He routinely makes 100-150% of his quota each quarter and so does his team.

He is going to walk if they force him to go to one of those offices since he lives nowhere near any of those offices and is not willing to relocate his whole family. He has spoken with his team of 15 and of those 15 approximately 75% said they will leave as well. Seems sort of ridiculous to me but I guess IBM is willing to take that risk.

Boeing 2 in the making.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is a crappy employee.

My friends Dad worked at IBM his whole career and was near the Melville Long Island office and he had to move locations.

He picked the location he wanted to retire at and located there and company was generous with moving costs.

Not at all when moving.

Raleigh is a wonderful location, great weather and lower cost of living and some great instate schools.

Poughkeepsie is a wonderful location, amazing schools, very cute area. Suburb of NYC. You can zoom into Manhattan on the train or hop in car head upstate quickly for sking and fall foliage

Did your friend's dad have a wife with a career?

Yes a SAHM. But the OP wife is remote which is same thing relocation wise

A SAHM and a remote worker are two very different things - IMO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He needs to play IBM's game for 6-12 months until they get rid of enough head count and liquidate some of their crappier regional commercial RE.

Tell him to fly up to Westchester airport on Monday AM and fly back home Wednesday PM. Three days in the office. It's a box checking exercise.

All these companies will relax RTO policies once they've brought down their costs and offloaded some of their CRE. They want to see who is loyal to the company and will bite the bullet. If he's well compensated and in the latter half of his career, he should figure out how to make it work.

I guarantee it will be a better and more flexible landscape in 12 months once they get rid of some deadweight.

Yes to this. Or play the game and see which "reports" show that he needs to show up more often. As long as it's a warning system and not instant termination I guess. At my company the people who care (the ones with real estate stake IDK) get an aggregate report. That had a person who was out for surgery not "showing up" as a red flag. Hilarious. The managers get the report and don't care much but they would warn someone who wasn't making numbers, and they would be aware of who is out for surgery.

[Anonymous]

Stealth layoffs. They don’t care if your BIL quits. In fact, they’re hoping he does.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is a crappy employee.

My friends Dad worked at IBM his whole career and was near the Melville Long Island office and he had to move locations.

He picked the location he wanted to retire at and located there and company was generous with moving costs.

Raleigh is a wonderful location, great weather and lower cost of living and some great instate schools.

Poughkeepsie is a wonderful location, amazing schools, very cute area. Suburb of NYC. You can zoom into Manhattan on the train or hop in car head upstate quickly for sking and fall foliage

Your friend’s dad probably worked for IBM when lifetime employment was their policy. They moved people around to different locations, but they wouldn’t let someone go without a cause. It changed in the 90s.

Quite the opposite! He was there when lifetime employment originally. But they broke that promise, the stock was under $100 a share when he took relocation package.

He picked place he wanted to retire to. Sold his old house. IBM paid moving costs and realtor fees in old house. Three years later laid him off big severance. Did a start up then in late 50s and retired early 60s rich.

He worked IBM 18-55. Yes started 18 and got degree at night. Got married at 20. And yes they laid him off after 37 years.

[Anonymous]

Is he still on the road doing sales or is he now in a manager role where he gets credit for his team of traveling salespeople? If the former, how will they account for his time in various locations engaging with clients?

I agree with other PPs that he should look into flying in Monday morning and out on Wednesday afternoon. Price out renting a studio apartment versus a hotel. Or even find another colleague in the same boat and split the cost of that apartment. This wasn't uncommon at my company among senior executives in the pre-Covid years. We have offices all over the country, but once someone hit a certain level they were expected to have a presence in our corporate office. I know of a handful of folks who had lovely homes and lives in other parts of the country and just flew to HQ for two days per week.

Try it for a few months and if it's unsustainable either financially or for your family's life rhythms, then go look for something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He is a crappy employee.

My friends Dad worked at IBM his whole career and was near the Melville Long Island office and he had to move locations.

He picked the location he wanted to retire at and located there and company was generous with moving costs.

Raleigh is a wonderful location, great weather and lower cost of living and some great instate schools.

Poughkeepsie is a wonderful location, amazing schools, very cute area. Suburb of NYC. You can zoom into Manhattan on the train or hop in car head upstate quickly for sking and fall foliage

OP - how is he a crappy employee? Presumably your friends dad worked for IBM back in the 80s. My BIL has worked for IBM starting in the 2000s and never once had to go into an office. So its not like a return to pre-covid office. There has never been an office. The bait and switch seems ridiculous.

It's a way to get people to leave. People's behavior makes perfect sense if they have a different goal than you do.

[Anonymous]

IBM has a history

https://nypost.com/2022/02/14/ibm-execs-accused-of-age-discrimination-lawsuit/

[Anonymous]

They used to say IBM stood for I’ve Been Moved. But the whole company went to shit in the late 80s when they laid off all the experienced people to save money and started carving up the company into spin offs.

They do have an office in Bethesda because I’ve seen it. I think it’s been there decades. So it’s not just Poughkeepsie, Raleigh and Minneapolis.

The Poughkeepsie office was historically R&D, not really sales. I think the same for Minneapolis.

Anyway, I often find that these RTO calls have a lot of carve outs for people with different circumstances. So if there’s no office near him, and he is serving clients that are near his current home, they may just exempt him—particularly if he was remote prior to pandemic.

The larger problem is that a lot of more junior or lower level employees are not doing well with all the managers being remote. Remote work just isn’t working that well for those dolls in a lot of industries. Law firms are having this problem—the senior people could all do their work perfectly well remotely, but then the junior lawyers don’t get adequate mentoring and the paralegals and staff really aren’t good at doing things remote. No one wants to say that only the lower level people come back to work.