IBM as a company engages in software creation, struggling to be leaders in creation, innovation and designing of technologies more advanced than their counterparts in the industry. IBM offers professional technological services to their customers universally. IBM as adopted a system that allows its employees to work from home. Providing job opportunities for than 400,000 people across the world, IBM experiences various human resource challenges (Crane, 2009).
One of the profound challenges experienced by this company, results from the heterogeneous nature of the labor force. Unlike past years company’s today hire various individuals from all over the world who have diverse customs and desires. IBM faces the challenge of ensuring that their employees become accustomed to laws in other countries and fulfill them (Crane, 2009). Again the company has to train the employees to adapt to the transforming technology.
Since the new system involves communications to employees through the phone, it is challenging for IBM to organize its employees since no substantial room is available for them to direct their employees. The company has saved a significant amount of money usually used to acquire offices, cubicles and other forms of working space for their employees and in the process lost one on one contact with the workers. The company thus have little control on activities that, if not well handled would have a detrimental effect on the company (Durai, 2010). The lack of contact makes it hard for the company to motivate its workers. The lack of contact affects the company’s personal relationships with the employees and has a direct influence on the productivity of the employees and the company in general. The focus and goals for most of the employees become blurred as their visibility in the company becomes limited. The employee’s dreams of making positive adjustments in their careers are lost, as most pick on negative insights. Problems relating to morality are likely to occur since the control by the company is not present (Durai, 2010).
The IBM wandering tribe system is a very innovative way of saving cost encountered when acquiring offices; it has however been met by various reactions from the employees. The employees, for instance, find it had to get accustomed to a job away from the office. They are likely to experience feeling of isolation since there is no physical contact between the workers and the administrators. Working with others, enables one to acquire skills from the experienced employees and also offers a chance to improve an individual’s technical skills and even train on new activities of the organization (Durai, 2010). The self-worth of the workers is affected when they are denied the opportunity to work in a proper or the customary physical space, for example, an office (Crane, 2009). The lack of confidence by these employees limits their performance and indirectly affects the company.
When working away from the office, the employees are faced with many challenges. An example being, technical issues that could be easily resolved if presented to the right people, however being at home, they are not able to handle these technical issues since the technical help are unavailable.
Not all employees are opposed to the roaming family system adopted by IBM. Some find it working positively for them. The argument is that the system makes it simpler for employees to perform their tasks, to those with multiple responsibilities it allows time to get everything done at once. This system allows the employees to safe travel allowances and time that would be spent to get to a set place of work. Workers in distant areas can get their jobs done easily at the comfort of their homes (Durai, 2010).
The adoption of the “roaming Family” was an attempt to cut down on the costs that would be incurred by IBM in acquiring physical working space for their employees. Though this is a positive and innovative way of reducing expenditure in human resource, in my opinion it affects employee’s motivation negatively. The workers work at home where they determine their one working pace, time and even the quality of work they undertake daily. Given this kind of power, the employees tend to be reluctant since they do not physically interact with other employees. The interaction with other employees motivates one to be better than the others, to be able to acquire new skills from the others and finally fill one with the desire to advance their career and be like the senior employees in the organization (Kodama, 2012).
Therefore in my opinion without physical encounter with the others, an individual lags behind on information about the activities of the organization, lacks motivation to advance their career because of lack of competition (Kodama, 2012). IBM’s “wandering tribe” will affect employee performance negatively since the relationship between the company and the employee is strained and almost lost.
The new adoption by IBM is a contrast to the traditional working environment characterized by an office. Though engulfed by various challenges, it has been crucial for IBM to save money spent on acquiring office space.
References
Crane, D. R., & Hill, E. J. (2009). Handbook of families and work: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Lanham, Md: University Press of America.
Durai, P. (2010). Human resource management. Chennai: Pearson.
Kodama, M. (2012). Competing through ICT capability: Innovation in image communication. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
