IBM CEO Arvind Krishna Alert Remote Employee to be Ready for Career Suffer
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna Alert Remote Employee to be Ready for Career Suffer
Krishna's remarks add to the growing debate over the benefits of remote versus in-person work, with some CEOs arguing that workers, particularly younger employees, need to be on-site more often than not for learning and mentorship opportunities. Approximately 80% of IBM employees work from home at some point, Krishna believes.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna Alert Remote Employee to be Ready for Career Suffer
Arvind Krishna, IBM CEO since 2020, has a warning for the company’s 260,000 employees: Remote employment might be dangerous to your career.
The CEO of IBM, whose hybrid-cloud computing business has profited from the rise of remote work, said he’s not requiring anyone to come into the office just yet, but those who don’t will find it difficult to advance, particularly into management positions.
“Being a people manager when you’re remote is just tough because if you’re managing people, you need to be able to see them every once in a while,” he said in an interview in NEW YORK. “It doesn’t have to happen every minute.”
You don’t have to follow those old ‘Everybody’s under my watch’ guidelines all the time, but you should.” Krishna’s remarks add to the growing debate over the benefits of remote versus in-person work, with some CEOs arguing that workers, particularly younger employees, need to be on-site more often than not for learning and mentorship opportunities, while other experts point to research showing that workers are happier and even more productive when they can work from home.
According to data from economists who study work-from-home trends, office-based employees spend 25% more time on career-development activities than their remote counterparts.
“It seems to me that we work better when we are together in person,” Krishna added, describing the company’s return-to-office strategy as “we encourage you to come in, we expect you to come in, we want you to come in.” They recommend three days every week, according to him.
According to statistics from a team of economists who have monitored the matter since the pandemic began, nearly half of US employees who can work from home have hybrid arrangements. Only one in every five employees is fully remote, with the rest working full-time in the office. Working from home is most frequent in the technology and professional services industries, where IBM competes, according to the data.
However, with layoffs on the rise and job openings on the decline, some workers are concerned that working from home will jeopardize their job security.
While approximately 80% of IBM employees work from home at some point, Krishna believes remote arrangements are best suited for specific “individual contributor” roles such as customer service or software programmers. “You can probably be equally productive in the short term,” he says, “but your career suffers.” “Moving from there to another role is probably less likely because no one is watching them in a different context.” It will be more difficult. Not impossible, but definitely much more difficult.”
Krishna, who took over as CEO immediately after the epidemic began in April 2020, stated that people choose to work remotely, but it does not have to be “a forever choice – it could be a choice based on convenience or circumstance.” Remote workers, he claims, do not learn how to deal with challenging clients or make trade-offs while building a new product. “I don’t understand how to do all of that remotely,” he admitted.
IBM’s CEO has sought to reposition the century-old firm towards more profitable services such as hybrid-cloud computing, in which clients run their own data centers alongside public cloud providers such as Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. Earlier this year, the business announced job cuts that might total 5,000 people if finished. Nonetheless, Krishna stated that IBM has increased its workforce overall, hiring approximately 7,000 people in the first quarter.
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