IBM Reviews in Toronto, ON Area

Pros

flexbility, you can work at home

Cons

low salary and slow promotion, lay-off people each year

Pros

The Markham Software Lab is very big. This means that there are many people there that you can go to for questions or support.
Cafeteria is fairly decent but the food does tend to get repetitive after 3 months of eating eat.
Fairly generous about work hours. As long as you are there for you meetings or available on the phone/online, then you can leave the office if something comes up.
Lots of rooms to switch jobs within the company if you're not happy with your current one.

Cons

Lots of corporate red tape. While I worked there, they were doing come major cuts and so it was hard to obtain anything (eg software licences) unless you filed some forms and proved that you needed it for your job.
Hard to get around unless you have a car. Traffic is really bad during rush hour.
Too many useless meetings (but this really depends on the team you're on).

Advice to Senior Management

Have teams write wikis on what to do when someone new arrives on the team. It's been twice now (I switched teams) that people were scrambling around trying to remember what mailing lists to put me on, what forms I needed to get licences and equipment, and what software I needed to install.

Pros

big organization, good salary package, opportunities of growth

Cons

big organizations, politics, some old systems, complicated procedure, long process of computer authentication for new employees

Advice to Senior Management

need BA analysis in job environment

Pros

Job security (as much as you can have in this economy). Pension.

Cons

On occasion, many many meetings with no real outcome. This usually happens because of poor meeting prep.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work.

Pros

Just a big name & providing good service it its clients

Cons

Everything!
Worst salary for low level employees and contractors
No work life balance, they would want you to work 24/7 if you can till you die!
Stressful work environment...Too much work that you can hardly take a 15 min break. They give you 30 Min lunch because it's mandatory by law.
No Incentives, maybe nice word now and then when you do something GREAT!
High layoff and firing rate.

Advice to Senior Management

Take care of your low level employees and contractors. Because of them the work get done!
Treat your contractors as human beings and not resources like they laptops!
Increase salary rate to compensate for the stressful work environment.

Pros

- Great to have on your resume
- Work from home option
- Treated as an adult (without managers looking over your shoulder)
- Benefits are above average

Cons

- Jobs are outsourced, and outsourced employees are not held accountable
- Too much red tape which does not allow for any innovation
- Putting in extra hours is expected of each employee as departments are always understaffed and employees are expected to pick up the work load
- Almost impossible to get things done as everyone hides behind policies!
- Perks do not really exists unless your in sales, promises of salary alignments to market value etc never usual show up.
- Work life balance, that term doesn't exist

Advice to Senior Management

When I joined IBM I was all excited to be part of the team. However, my felling after the years of employment is that management feels that employees are cheap labour to be found anywhere. Also make sure employees feel like they have a future with the company. It seems my next job role will be which ever department needs help with because my "Band" is not good enough for positions in IBM! (Ironically I've been interviewing externally for similar or the same positions with success).

Pros

Smart technical people with great work ethic. Good facilities and compensation. Generally good work/life balance (save crunch times). Some flexibility in working from home. Great opportunities for learning and exposure to wide range of technologies.

Cons

Acquisitions make life hell for developers. Very limited opportunity to create and innovate (vs acquire and integrate). Entrenched products and management make change very difficult to achieve. Low respect for technical people (seen as replaceable resources). Very poor project planning with unrealistic schedules and staffing. Outsourcing trends suggest a short career shelf-life for most employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Talk to and listen to your technical people (not just first line management). Encourage innovation from within. Recognize that the pace of acquisition is damaging to employee morale. Provide 20% discretionary time for development innovation/sanity. Focus less on short term gains and more on long term technical innovation.

Pros

Good training and good co-workers to work with

Cons

Poor management and employees are treated as resources instead of people.

Advice to Senior Management

Look after your employees.

Pros

Very good work life balance .. great minds work here. People are the best part. Employees helpful and caring and work for the greatest good.

Cons

Many layers of management and shear size of company makes it hard to get the big picture sometimes. However there are large meetings to share info.

Advice to Senior Management

Upper management does great job of sharing information, but need to interpret it for the employees in concrete ways inorder for us to mobilize under the big plan.

Pros

Frequently surrounded by smart, motivated people.

Cons

100% deployable and work at the client's whim. If that means you work 8am - 11pm no one cares; they just expect you to do it.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop treating your consultants like dirt and expecting them to be grateful.