IBM Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

Most of the people are really nice and hardworking. The company has a good reputation. Excellent with EEO. Often very flexible with work hours. Compensation is competitive and benefits are good.

Cons

As a general rule, you will be expected to work at least 50 hours a week and do give back in addition to your normal work hours. This is to meet productivity goals and must be done even in slow times. (Giveback is good, it you had the time to do it) The job is not secure. Periodically IBM does massive layoffs. It doesn't matter if you are on the bench or have a revenue producing assignment, if you are in the wrong group at the wrong time, you will be laid off.

Advice to Senior Management

Instead of doing mass layoffs, look for other ways to save money. It used to be that people were IBM's most valuable asset.
Review productivity goals and the original purpose for them. Overtime is necessary from time to time to meet deadlines. It doesn't make sense to be putting in hours to meet productivity goals when hours are just being put in for the sake of putting in hours. Also, when employees are constantly putting in massive amounts of overtime, they are more prone to mistakes and "real" productivity goes down. Current productivity goals are determined by the number of hours put in and I can't believe that was the original purpose of the productivity goals.

Pros

Top technology name, great resources for technology smarts. Large consulting and software business. Well known name. Largest global outsourcer. Recognized worldwide. Have moved globally quickly with people and sales. Smarter planet seems to be working well as a marketing campaign.

Cons

Short term focus on people. Moving jobs overseas at a rapid pace. Frequent downsizing. Changes in direction on the consulting side are frequent. Changes in middle level management frequently. They have never gotten all the parts of the business working effectively together; often work across purposes. Losing ground to MSFT and Oracle in enterprise software.

Advice to Senior Management

Get all the pieces to work together. Ever since I joined the company the common refrain was, "If we can only get all the pieces working together effectively, we could be unbeatable.

Pros

IBM is a great company and Executive Management has a great vision.

Cons

The problem is that vision get lost in transmission and you end up with chaos, lots of politics, and old folks in management whose only reason being these is to secure retirement. Employee Advancement is not existing, career advancement does not exist, and support for Eduction is null.

Advice to Senior Management

Executive Management needs to ensure that their vision is not lost in transmission. They need to focus on career development, and Education opportunities. Caring for employees need to move from lip service, Intranet PR, to actual processes that can be measured. Internal Employee happiness and problems need to be recognized and addressed

Pros

Great benefits! Access to leaders all over the globe is an incredible networking opportunity. Very proud to tell people I work at IBM. At the highest levels of the organization the IT industry thought leadership is unparalleled.

Cons

Working for a smaller group or cost center within Big Blue can be especially challenging. My group is like a small/medium business that is expected to perform on par with Fortune 500 companies but lacks the resources to do so both in dollars and people. Cost cutting is paramount.

Advice to Senior Management

Spend the money to recruit and retain top talent. Develop a high performance team that is engaged and committed to delivering the best service possible or risk being divested or having the team outsourced to growth markets.

Pros

Great people, Teamwork amongst co-workers was great. access to technologies via research was great.

Cons

Management was not in tune at all with technology , did not care about personal issues . They payed lip service to that.. I saw some business practices by management that really bordered on bad ethics (they did not follow the Business Conduct Guidelines) when it came to personnel issues . Management was into the beat the employees until they improved (especially the Southeast Sales environment) they know morale is poor but just don't care

Advice to Senior Management

I've been around along time . The company I know is dying... the Management today is killing it. they should leave.. or just close the company

Pros

Flexible time off
Great health/medical/401K benefits
Work from home

Cons

Poor integration of people from acquired companies
Difficult to get promoted
Lots of maintenance work, less exciting new work.

Advice to Senior Management

People managers should help with employee career dev
Share IBM knowledge with acquisitions ASAP, and also learn from them

Pros

Good benefits, respected company, good people, competitive pay. As a sales person IBM has name recognition with customers, which helps get your foot in the door. Was a better place to work when I started a few years back than it is now.

Cons

Tough to advance, unclear career paths, not enough focus on career development, hardly ever give raises, constant change in strategy - never stick with one strategy long enough to gauge its success, lots of bureaucracy (too many systems and tools, too much reporting required), not great at rewarding/recognizing success, risk/fear of layoffs.

Pay plans are convoluted to the point where no one really understands exactly how they get paid. Every year I worked there they changed the pay plan to pay us less and very few folks got raises (and those who did said the raises were a joke). They have been cutting back recognition programs the last couple of years so high performance isn't really rewarded anymore. Job is always at risk to be eliminated - lots of layoffs in inside sales the last few years.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on developing your current employees, reward performance with pay increases, make it easier/quicker to advance, pick a strategy and see it through, eliminate some of the bureaucracy

Pros

- Great Benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision, ect.)

Cons

- Wage increases haven't met the increases in cost of living for years.
- Outsourcing to BRIC countries continues to cause IBM US employees to lose jobs and as a result those who remain are forced to pick up more duties to make up for the losses.
- Although IBM touts itself as 'work/life balance' friendly the hours employees are required to work are not friendly to that balance.
- Cost control has reached the point that the company is spending more money auditing costs than the actual costs involved.
- Business and Audit control requirements are becoming so overwhelming that it's become impossible to keep up with the reports and systems to track these items.
- Senior Management is out of touch on the affects of Outsourcing and cost cutting to the employees and as a result to the customers.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a good look at the true costs of outsourcing. The loss of knowledge of your customers systems, the loss of the ability to communicate with your customers, and the affect you're having on the US economy (and as a result the customers you support who will then turn around and demand more cost cuts.... ever hear of a vicious circle?).

Stop putting so much overhead work for audits and business control reporting.

Pros

IBM has taken good care of me over the years...my salary is competitive, and particularly early in my career the benefits were best-of-breed.

Cons

There is too much focus on the bottom-line (i.e. shareholder return). As a result, continued cost-cutting in major markets such as the US has left those remaining workers overworked and under-appreciated.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize that continued off-shoring will lead to negative consequences (reduced customer sat, lower employee morale, negative media and regulatory attention).

Pros

Benefits are very good. For the most part there is some security in my job.

Cons

Cannot move into any internal positions outside of your local department. C level management more concerned with their pay/bonuses than the welfare of the employees or value for the stock holder. Basically the same as any large company.

Advice to Senior Management

I would not waste my time trying to give any advice to management, they would not listen anyway.