Case overview

This case is about change in IBM: not ordinary change, but the most difficult – mindset change. Companies merge, re-engineer, re-strategize, and re-make themselves in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. Efforts to “empower” employees in the workplace, and to adapt the workplace to employees' needs of balancing work and life, require new management strategies. Each of these situations brings with it a conflict of values and mindsets between the way we “have always done things” and the way “we're going to do it now.” Helping people understand “what” changes occur when a flexible work environment is implemented and how this impacts their roles and responsibilities in the organization is not an easy task. This is exactly what this case will address: the mindset of both managers and employees relative to the acceptance of a flexible work environment at IBM. And last, but not least, is how the company itself changed its mindset, providing tools and support to make change happen.

IBM work–life programs

IBM's attention to work–life issues and flexibility predates any specific strategy. As early as the 1960s, IBM instituted a one-year unpaid leave of absence, and in the early 1980s the company pioneered individual work schedules allowing some day-to-day flexibility.

IBM's more formal focus on work–life issues began in 1984 when the company supported the creation of the first employer-sponsored national resource and referral network for finding childcare across the US. IBM had been conducting work–life issue surveys since 1986 in the United States in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the issues employees face with regard to balancing their work and personal lives.