Steal a Page from IBM’s Playbook and Commit to a Flex Work Pledge

When the pandemic shuttered offices, sending workers to meet their deadlines from home, employees experienced a whole new set of challenges. 

Some were forced to work in cramped spaces while simultaneously dealing with childcare and homeschooling responsibilities. Others scrambled to make their homes office-ready, using kitchen tables, couches, and even beds for desks. Then there was the Zoom fatigue, as workers spent hours videoconferencing with colleagues. The stresses that came with working from home were enormous. In fact, a Gallup poll found that remote workers were more likely to experience burnout during the pandemic than those who worked onsite.

IBM employees were no different, but rather than struggling through the challenges alone, they shared their frustrations. “We came up with what was called the Work from Home Pledge,” says Nickle LaMoreaux, the CHRO at IBM, “and it was how IBMers agreed to interact with one another while we’re all working from home.” It also was a major step in the company’s efforts to help their employees attain work-life balance. The pledge consists of eight individual vows that range from how employees will treat each other (with kindness) to how they will practice self-care (by setting boundaries).

Every set of employees has its share of issues, whether they have to do with working from home or some other aspect of office culture. The development of the IBM Work from Home Pledge serves as a lesson in how leaders can listen to their talent and can create a safe space for collaboration and effective problem-solving.

Managers took action to address employee needs and then codified it

From the beginning, the pledge was an exercise in teamwork and inspired leadership. Managers proved willing to listen to the frustrations shared by their teams and then took action.

Caroline Roche, a partner with the company, was working from home when her 10-month-old son fell from a diaper-changing table. Though her son wasn’t hurt, Caroline was understandably flustered when she logged in for a video conference call that day. She mentioned the incident to colleagues during the meeting and that led to a discussion among team members about the challenges of working from home. 

The discussion did not end there. Paul Papas, a managing partner with IBM Consulting, and other company leaders, including Monica Logan and Molly Vannucci, decided to come up with principles to help employees on their teams navigate the remote work landscape. As the idea received positive feedback throughout the organization, other company leaders added their input and the pledge was born. 

Then the effort got a huge boost from CEO Arvind Krishna, who wrote a post explaining his support for the pledge. 

Like remote workers everywhere, IBM employees discovered work-life balance can be more difficult to attain when there are no physical boundaries between the home and the office. The pledge addresses a host of issues employees face on a daily basis. 

Leadership buy-in made the pledge a success

One reason the IBM pledge was so powerful: It was endorsed by the company’s leadership team from the beginning. CEO Arvind shared how he would support the pledge’s principles, writing, “I acknowledge we are all balancing our work and personal lives in new circumstances. I encourage those homeschooling, providing care to others, or addressing other personal needs to block time on their calendar during the day to be able to focus on those activities, as needed. And, I pledge to respect those boundaries when scheduling meetings.” 

Had company leaders not been willing to listen to employees’ frustrations, the effort might have fizzled before coming to fruition. Rakhi Voria, a vice president with IBM global digital sales development, wrote in a post: “My global leadership team and I pledge to support IBMers working from home during COVID-19, and I hope each of you take the pledge to support your own teams during this pandemic.” The company even touted the pledge in its annual report as a key accomplishment in its quest to reinvent the world of work.

IBM employees continue to see value in the pledge. “I’ve even got some IBMers saying to me, ‘Hey, let’s talk about the Hybrid Work Pledge and how that might go,’” Nickle reports. 

IBM Canada adapted the pledge a year after it was developed to create the IBM Canada Work-Life Pledge, which addresses work-life balance as employees continue to work remotely for the foreseeable future.

The pledge can also serve as an inspiration to other companies.

• Rakhi urges leaders in other organizations to check on their employees who are working remotely and prepare a set of guidelines to help them. 
• A blog post published by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology referenced the IBM pact and posed the question, “Should your organization have a work from home pledge?” While the post doesn’t make the assumption that a pledge is for everyone, it lays out the reasons why companies should at least consider it.

Final thoughts: To address the changing needs of their workforces, companies should start by listening

To ensure a healthy workplace, an organization must adapt to meet employees’ evolving needs. The IBM pledge is an example of how company leaders not only identified a growing challenge to employee well-being, but how they used employee feedback to come up with a set of solutions. When those same leaders bought in to the pledge and demonstrated unwavering support, those actions showed their workforce that their welfare was a company priority. 

IBM and other organizations can apply a similar inclusive strategy when confronting new challenges that impact their teams.

The pledge also serves as a foundation for the hybrid workplace of the future. Organizations have discovered the benefits — and challenges — that come with allowing employees to work from home. There will likely be many more discussions about how best to handle the challenges that come with the hybrid workplace. IBM’s Work from Home Pledge can serve as a starting point.

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