Yeah, it’s always better when we’re together, so croons Jack Johnson in every retail store, along with CEOs across America’s nationwide collection of empty offices. Latest to join the Greek chorus is IBM CEO Arvind Krishna, who recently claimed in a Bloomberg interview on Monday that working from home was not the best for everyone’s careers. And until A.I. takes the job of filling a desk, Krishna is looking to have his workers come in on a hybrid basis. Not “under those old ‘Everybody’s under my eye’ kind of rules,” he said, but at least sometimes.
“In the short term you probably can be equally productive, but your career does suffer,” Krishna said of working only remotely, pointing out that working from home is better for roles centering on individual contributions. “Moving from there to another role is probably less likely because nobody’s observing them in another context,” he adds. “It will be tougher. Not impossible, but probably a lot tougher.” Even if he thinks working from home is bad for your career trajectory, the head of the tech giant isn’t forcing anyone back to headquarters, as Bloomberg points out that 80% of IBM employees are at least partially working remotely.
