IBM Reviews

Pros

Great people! The atmosphere is great here. Everyone is easy to get along with, willing to help you out, and work schedule is very flexible

Cons

Lack of growth opportunities. Numerous employees have moved to other companies because IBM lacks job openings. Exposure to various technologies is also limited. Only given 4 vacation days a year. Can take more but with no pay.

Advice to Senior Management

More appreciation should be shown to employees for doing a good job and working hard. Jobs seems to be valued very minimally by upper management

Pros

Get to work on world class products

Cons

IBM is too large of a company and I feel they care too much about profit margin.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a chance on new ideas

Pros

Flexible schedule and the ability to work remotely

Cons

Weak and indecisive first line managers, utilization, annual performance reports, job security, status quo (some projects are going to do this because they've always done it this way--blows me away), lack of innovation when it comes to internal policies, procedures, processes....paperwork nightmare just for the sake of paperwork (my opinion), benefits are not impressive...

Advice to Senior Management

Step up and talk to your employees! Give relevant FEEDBACK. Don't tell a person they're doing great all year and then hit them with a low PBC. Take time out your "precious day" to read email from your employees. I have never seen so many individuals in leadership positions unwilling to respond/answer email. A lot of, "I'll talk to you off the record" crap... Seems like most are afraid of losing their jobs.

Pros

demanding / challenging work
smart co-workers
access to cutting edge technologies and huge accounts

Cons

work is constantly being off-shored. The current business model is to simplify job roles and then off-shore them to low cost labor countries. Means getting promoted is difficult, and a probability of a good salary increase is low.

Advice to Senior Management

no advice, morale is horrible and I don't anything is going to change anytime soon. They are doing what it takes in this economic/political climate to succeed. The US is hosed for the time being.
ps. When all the tech jobs have been off-shored, guess who will be next? There won't be a need for US managers when all the techs are in India.

Pros

Flexible Work Timings
Work From Home
Exposure
The huge customers list
the brand value
it looks good on your resume

Cons

No Work life balance
you work for peanuts
difficult to move around in the system
diffcult to get used to never ending processes

Pros

You have an IBM stamp on your resume.

Cons

1. Very very poor planning on the facilities in the new & state-of-the-art (huh, really !!!) building.
2. Plan to stay at this location for 2 years before you can move on to another opportunity within IBM.
3. Forget abt promotion for 2 years at this location.
4. New 'process' and 'framework' model really sucks.
5. Work From Home - SORRY, You have to be at this location (for what ???) even though all of your team is located acrosss the world.

Advice to Senior Management

Too many management layers. Get rid of some.

Pros

Flexible working hours - free to manage your own time
Relaxed culture - helps that most people in the Singapore lab are young
Opportunity to explore - IBM is a big company

Cons

Pay is mediocre
PBC and rating system is screwed up
Secrecy - pay scale among other things
Red tape - lots of annoying regulations to comply with

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce the bureacracy, let people focus on their actual work
Improve recognition and compensation of employees

Pros

You can work as much (or as little) as you want
Great place for people who want a relaxed job and focus on other priorities in life
Good colleagues

Cons

Technical growth is very slow, spend more time with red tape then doing work that matters
Weak middle management, greedy upper management
Since the time I've been here, working conditions have only declined more and more, and employees are getting increasingly unhappy and outspoken about unhappiness

Advice to Senior Management

Stop with the short-term thinking & stop being too cheap to invest in your own employees

Pros

Great work life balance. opportunity to switch between roles if you can stick around for a loooong time.

Cons

Extremely slow. Feels like semi-retirement. Insulated and cut-off from the external market.

Advice to Senior Management

Empower your employees. Remember there's a vast world outside IBM.

Pros

Pay and benefits were good. Flexible work/life balance and could work remotely.

Cons

Lack of job security as you never knew if your job would be redudant. Always changing procedures that work to try out potentially better but not always good procedures. Couldn't always meet team members scattered across the US.

Advice to Senior Management

Better training. Need better forecasting of possible jobredundancies and better help in finding new jobs within IBM.