IBM Reviews in Boston, MA Area

Pros

There's a lot of good talent, and there are some great career opportunities and the work/life balance is great

Cons

It's hard to advance your career, the management structure is quite unorganized and the mentoring doesn't work, too many red tapes, no real respect for individuals as most communication is impersonal

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in the talent, provide better training and career advancement paths, revamp the mentoring to make it useful

Pros

The work environment at IBM is relaxed. Most managers allow their directs to work from home on a regular basis, which I found appealing.

Cons

I think as a consequence of the size of the company (100,000+), there are a lot of employees. And in such a sea of people, there are some that are floundering. Working with unqualified coworkers is never an enjoyable experience, and it's happened on more than a few occasions with my career at IBM.

Advice to Senior Management

Screen interviewers better. Keep better tabs on what your employees are doing, because it seems like a lot aren't doing their jobs.

Pros

Marquis name for my CV. Great benefits and decent wages. Some incredibly smart people work here.

Cons

IBM does an incredible PR job of telling the world what a great place this is for women to work. Unfortunately, that promise is not well executed in many parts of the org. If you look at the majority of Executive women -- they are not in the power seats. Yes, there are many many women VPs and Directors. But - take a look at the roles they have and the influence they carry. Not even CLOSE to equal. There are obviously exceptions - which are trumpeted to the world. But the 'old boys network' dominates and nothing happens unless they approve.

While not unique to IBM, tough women are still labeled the B word and tough men are super-stars.
Double-standards can be observed on a regular basis.

I was happier here when I knew less about this --- ignorance is bliss. This is not sour grapes - as I have been blessed with some great mentors. However, it is disheartening and I find it extremely difficult to mentor younger women w/o being somewhat dishonest. Our public face regarding gender diversity does not match our internal practices and/or reality.

Advice to Senior Management

Finance runs the company -- which is why our stock continues to perform. I get that! However, the the last few months have felt more panic driven than strategic decision.

Of course it is necessary to eliminate poor performers and of course it is necessary to be conservative with spending - in times like this. But there is a breaking point where the mid to long-term impacts may not be well considered. Technical talent and skills take a long time to build. We have gone beyond cutting to the bone - we are now extracting organs.

When the economy turns around -- we will be in a very poor position to compete. And the bitterness created by the cuts (especially within the DEV teams where jobs were off-shored) will not be forgotten. People will not return and are willing to take a lesser job elsewhere...they are just that angry. Also, I have never seen the morale at such a low. I think that many people will leave - once the opps start to appear externally. Gone are the days when people would hope to stay for a lifetime.

I am happy to still be employed -- but worry every day. I see so many things that we could be doing to improve -- but the days of being able to tackle those challenges are long gone. We are simply in a maintain mode..... not a winner for a strategic plan.

Pros

IBM is a large company, and relatively stable despite the economic downturn, though there have been a lot of layoffs recently. Many very smart people work there.

Cons

Decisions from on high often seem arbitrary. It's easy to get stuck in the wrong position.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more consistent in what you say the values of the company are compared to what you actually do.

Pros

My co-workers were always supportive as well as some of the management team. The atmosphere amongst the non-mangers is relatively good and most people get along. People are not out to get your job or step on you.

Cons

There isn't a tremendous opportuntiy to move up the ladder now a days. However, most of the managers do not give consistent feedback either good or bad. The employees need to hear from the managers mostly now with the down economy, so they don't have to look over their shoulders all the time. You don't want a team that is paranoid about losing their job.

Advice to Senior Management

I would give your subordinates more consistent feedback concerning their work.

Pros

IBM encourages development of innovation technologies and products. There is opportunity if you really seek it out. and because they are so big there are lots of directions in which you can steer your career. There are a lot of really talented people who work for IBM and a strong network of women. The pay and benefits are competative.

Cons

It's BIG. There can be a fair amount of beaurocacy and sometimes getting the right thing done takes enourmous effort. There are still some pockets of old-school philosophy (comand and control instead of empower and trust.)

Advice to Senior Management

Get management focus on adding business value instead of "looking good". Mid- and senior management could do better at translating the overall objectives into direction.

Pros

Ability to work on interesting projects. Co-workers are extremely talented and above industry average. Corporate culture provides an excellent attitude towards time-off and personal time. Good benifits. Great industry exposure.

Cons

It is an extremely large company and the need for common rules might not match your situation.
Constant concern that your job may be moved overseas.
Extremely long hours trying to complete tasks using less than the minimum sane number up people.
Yearly review process can appear arbitrary despite managements' best efforts.

Advice to Senior Management

Hold on to your best employees. Driving them to a breaking point is not a viable long term strategy.

Pros

Good corporate culture promoting self-growth. Excellent intranet with daily news regarding what's going on in the organization. Great networking functionality and connectivity software. Work in various cross-functional teams with smart and experienced people. Good work life balance and friendly co-workers.

Cons

Somewhat lack of transparency from upper management regarding direction of the company.

Advice to Senior Management

More transparency regarding personnel plans

Pros

The only reason to work for IBM are the money and benefits. And if you are just beginning a career, IBM might be OK for a couple of years just to make the transition from the life lived at college and the life of full-time employment with no summer off. IBM is not a long-term proposition for anyone except the most senior management.

Cons

IBM bought the company I worked for, so my last 5 years there allowed me to observe the many ways in which IBM demoralizes talented people and drives them away.

IBM talks a great deal about being accountable, and it devises (and then revises) systems for setting goals for projects and for professional development and for reporting progress toward them. It is fair to say that you spend about 50% of your time collecting the data for and providing it to these systems. Thus, it is not possible to achieve the goals because you are spending most of your time measuring, but not making, progress.

What matters most is to appear to make progress and appear to take responsibility. Over time, your colleagues become disembodied voices in faraway lands, and you spend a great deal of time in conference calls with them. What you quickly learn is that you can declare progress has been made, and no one is likely to know or care whether it was. I inherited, from IBMers who understood how the game is played, projects that recent college graduates would have done a better job of. I was appalled by the "work" of senior people. Thus, IBM is not a place to learn any skill other than that of self promotion.

The cumulative impact is devastating. You don't see as much of the colleagues who are still around because you are always on the phone or trying (in vain) to get something done. The isolation gets to you. You become surprised that someone you worked with for years has a) left without saying anything or b) is still around because you haven't seen them in months. Most people work at home as much as possible.

Before IBM came into your life, you knew what a good job was and you knew how to do it. If you stay too long, you begin to doubt that you know anything and are worth anything to another company and even to yourself. Toward the end of my tenure, more than one person expressed thoughts of suicide. The only folks who seemed to understand the true nature of what was happening were raised in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

I left IBM. I was not laid off. I did not have another job lined up. Things are very tough right now, but I have never regretted leaving. It was a radical act of self respect. My confidence has returned.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop lying. The false cheer in the messages from Sam or whoever is running the division is insulting to the intelligence of your employees, who you claim to value. Honesty about your true intentions, namely, to rid yourself of most of your US workforce (especially anyone over 50) would not make anyone happy but would at least earn their respect.

IBM's true investment is not in innovative technology, superior customer service, or professional growth of employees. It is in the insidious mechanisms that disseminate and reinforce a culture in which the price of success is one's humanity.

Pros

IBM has global reach and very exciting work going on . It is a great place to gain exposure to a number of verticals.

Cons

IBM is not a company that offers growth opportunities. You will certainly have opportunities to stretch yourself but do not expect any increases in compensation or promotion. You need to be near the main leadership offices like Armonk, Boulder, Poughkeepsie if you expect to be recognized, otherwise you are an expendable American resource waiting to have your job shipped overseas.

Advice to Senior Management

Find a cultivate your talent from within the ranks. Stop shipping jobs overseas. Take a pay cut.