New York Times: At I.B.M., a Vacation Anytime, or Maybe None

September 1 2007

Yesterday's Times explored IBM's attitude towards vacations....

It's every worker's dream: take as much vacation time as you want, on short notice, and don't worry about your boss calling you on it. Cut out early, make it a long weekend, string two weeks together -- as you like. No need to call in sick on a Friday so you can disappear for a fishing trip. Just go; nobody's keeping track.

That is essentially what goes on at I.B.M., one of the cornerstones of corporate America, where each of the 355,000 workers is entitled to three or more weeks of vacation. The company does not keep track of who takes how much time or when, does not dole out choice vacation times by seniority and does not let people carry days off from year to year.

Instead, for the past few years, employees at all levels have made informal arrangements with their direct supervisors, guided mainly by their ability to get their work done on time.
Absolutely one of the coolest aspect of my job is the combined wonder of working from home and the informality of IBM's time-keeping.  I don't work 9-to-5... I just work, and when I can stop, I stop.  Parent-teacher meeting in the middle of the day?  I'll guarantee I'm one of three or four dads mixed in amongst the soccer moms.  Call with Australia at 10 PM?  Yeah, it happens.  Such is the work-life balance.

As for the vacation point of the article, I took a ten-day vacation last month and never missed a beat.  I spent maybe 20-30 minutes a day on e-mail during the trip, and never took a single conference call.  Nobody called my cellphone (which surprised me).  My colleagues covered things for me, as I do/will for them during their vacations.  It all just works.

I've always found it odd that a company of IBM's size and, well, -cough- process doesn't track vacations.  I guess it isn't a problem for them, and from where I sit, it certainly isn't a problem for me.

Slightly related, I was asked last week about covering an event in Beijing later this month.  It falls between the major Jewish holidays, and would have limited my time on the ground to just two or three working days.  It also made business class a real requirement, as I would hit the ground in China at 3 PM on a Monday and be expected to keynote a huge event on Tuesday morning.  In the end, I passed the opportunity to someone who could make the trip more worthwhile.  What was the clincher?  The business class airfare for Chicago-Beijing was, at yesterday's prices, US$14,250.  I would rather have IBM buy me a car for $14K than an airfare (not that that's going to happen), or perhaps someone originating in another city will find a more reasonable fare.  Either way, spending that much for 2-3 work days just isn't prudent.  Fares to Asia are normally less than half that.  I'll have to keep an eye on this in the coming months, with Italy and Australia trips on tap.

Link: New York Times: At I.B.M., a Vacation Anytime, or Maybe None >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  IBM  Add/View Comments [18]

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  1. 1  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 9/1/2007 6:11:23 PM

    That is indeed very sensible.

    From my own observation, the company always wins if it does not have strict timekeeping. People will work for longer than required. Companies here try to get people off the clock to avoid leaving any records that would be proof of breaking labor regulations.

    So, if you are in a strong position, this works very well. If you are in a bad position, it is going to hurt.

  1. 2  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 9/1/2007 6:12:29 PM

    Lest I forget, 3 to 4 weeks is very bad at our standards. :-)

  1. 3  Chris Blatnick http://interfacematters.com | 9/1/2007 6:51:31 PM

    Wow...cool! It sounds like IBM would be a cool place to work! ;-)

  1. 4  David Gursky  | 9/1/2007 7:36:28 PM

    OK, what the Times wrote, (like much of what the Times and every other US newspaper and newsmagazine IMNSVHO), is true, but to a point.

    [Caveat Emptor -- my experience is several years old with IBM, but I suspect it still holds true today.]

    I vaguely recall that a large portion of IBM's workforce today is in one or the other of IBM's consulting arms. IGS (IBM Global Services), ISSL (IBM Software Services for Lotus), and I'm sure a host of others. I want to say the number is about 150k worldwide, but I can't source that.

    Regardless of the number of people in the consulting arms, it seems reasonable to assume that most of them are, well, consultants. Employees of IBM that actually go out to customer sites and do things.

    So here's the rub on that vacation policy.

    All of those consultants, and many of the managers have a target for billable hours, typically 80%, as part of their goals / job description / whatever. So out of a 40 hour week, you need to bill 32 hours. Travel time to the client site is NOT billable. Furthermore, most client sites are not in your backyard, so (you guessed it), you are flying out to those sites. There goes that other eight hours/week.

    Now I am not in any way complaining about IBM's policy. It is great, wonderful, mature, forward thinking, and so on.

    It is NOT a panacea though.

  1. 5  Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 9/1/2007 7:48:08 PM

    @3 - LOL. Go Chris! Can I place any calls on your behalf? Write a formal recommendation?

    I mean, if I can't hire you, better that you go to work for our key partner rather than a competitor, right? ;-)

  1. 6  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 9/1/2007 8:48:23 PM

    My last job was pretty much like that. I told my boss when I would be out and as long as I met my targets he didn't care. My new job is about as far in the other direction as you could possibly go. I must be at my desk and logged into an electronic timekeeping system by 8:00 AM, comp time is a foreign concept, and strict adherence to the most inflexible HR policy is the order of the day.

  1. 7  Randall Shimizu  | 9/1/2007 10:38:54 PM

    IBM really leads the way for a distributed telecommuting work force. All to often we forget how far ahead the IT industry is since we work with cutting edge technology on a day to day basis. I have argued for many years that the IT industry needs to preach this to business. This is the only way we are going to reduce our energy consumption. IBM and it's partners are in a very strong position. Their are whole industries that refuse to let their workers work remotely. We need to talk to our colleagues and customers about the benefits of this whenever we can.

  1. 8  Almar Diehl http://www.domino-weblog.nl | 9/2/2007 4:03:58 AM

    This is just like my company is already working for about 15 years (although the company is a bit smaller with app. 100 employees ;-)). Work at the time you want, stop when you want, take vacation when you want. Of course all if possible in the project you're in.

    Everyone is also allowed to make (financial) decisions. F.i. for buying software or (small) deals with customers. Our idea is that anybody who can make decent private decisions on buying 200-300 K houses can also make the right choices when it comes to commercial decisions.

  1. 9  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 9/2/2007 4:36:37 AM

    Personally I end up losing holiday (vacation) days every year as I never get the chance to take it. Sounds like bad planning? Maybe, but with my diary so full way in advance it's very difficult to just take a couple of days off.

  1. 10  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/2/2007 5:41:31 AM

    @9 that's a real challenge. The last two years I've made sure to plan some leave/vacation months in advance, and "bank" a few days for ad-hoc days off. The long stretches never seem to be a problem, it's the "I want to take Friday off" that often gets challenged.

  1. 11  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 9/2/2007 5:57:22 AM

    I've admired IBM's working policy for some time, it's pretty revolutionary for such a large organisation. David has a point re IGS though, I think that's *very* different.

    At my current employer whilst we have strict holiday arrangements, working times are flexible to a point. I have been in a strong enough position that I can dictate my hours, within reason. I get the job done, but that may mean skipping a couple of hours in the afternoon and working later at night—whatever works.

    In any large org. though, there are invariably people who take advantage of flexible working, with consequences for everyone else—so we're not as flexible as we were a couple of years ago.

    I gather my new boss is pretty strict though *cough*

  1. 12  Vitor Pereira http://www.vitor-pereira.com | 9/2/2007 4:22:23 PM

    @5 Nathan, I have a feeling Chris is headed that way.

  1. 13  Dvir Reznik http://dvirreznik.blogspot.com | 9/2/2007 4:30:43 PM

    Ed, totally agree with your comments.

    As a student, and even now, after achieving 2 degrees with IBM, I have only good things to say about our Work-Life balance. Maybe it's not governed as other businesses, but every IBMer knows his responsibilities, either at work or at home.

    I have a vacation coming up in October, right after the Jewish holidays, so I'm working very hard now - to compensate. That's work-life balance for me.

  1. 14  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 9/2/2007 4:42:06 PM

    I work for myself and never get a vacation. :)

  1. 15  Keith Brooks http://lotustech.blogspot.com | 9/2/2007 8:21:12 PM

    Yeah IBM was great about it and in EMEA we got 5 weeks off I think. The joke was you get paid for it so if you don't officially file for the days you either get docked the pay for tax reasons or you get told as I was to take a month off. Sounded odd to me as well but when HR tells you to do it, who was I to argue?

    Sure I worked from home mostly but still it was odd.

  1. 16  Alan Smith  | 9/3/2007 5:33:52 AM

    re: #4

    I'm in BCS (A part of IGS) and ex-Lotus. It is very differet for us oer here :) We have a billable target we have to reach. It's not hugely different though, and you get "your time" back in other ways.

  1. 17  Wayne Boxall  | 9/3/2007 6:45:55 AM

    At Aussie IBM, we get 4 weeks a year (often we are told to take them), but flexibility around the work day just like in the US....yes it is a great system, that promotes hard work,