A dying company and a Last place anyone would want to work at - Anonymous employee IBM Employee Review

1.0
Oct 29, 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

None for a skilled person.

Cons

Now unlike most Indian IBMers, I happen to be skilled, knowledgeable and experienced. I do agree with the other posts on your site regarding the Indian workforce of IBM - 90% are unskilled, don't have the requisite knowledge and have been hired to make up the numbers/FTEs for GDF. Most of the work is messed-up and the 10% who have the knowledge, spend all their time fixing the crap of others or the mess just grows. Is there any wonder why clients hate IBM and are cancelling contracts by the dozen. Its frustration hell in IBM India(especially for anyone who's talented, skilled and hard-working). People who are on bench because they're bloody incapable get transferred to some other department(where they have no clue/skill-set as to what they are doing to ensure they screw that up too). Managers are the most idiotic bunch I've come across in my career - they are technically zero, they don't have any managerial soft skills and most specialize in sycophancy(whether it be giving rank idiot subordinates good ratings or cosying up to their superiors for better ratings for themselves). Diversity is everything - most of these "diversity" candidates join because they know they can "work from home"/"hardly work" as there is no accountability for what you do. Merit isn't anywhere in the equation. You'll be hard-pressed to find any skill-set among these hires - they're that incompetent - but hired so senior management can plug these numbers to higher-ups. Most of the talented(not more than 10% of the workforce) are looking out for opportunities elsewhere and leaving in droves, those who remain have other compulsions - some have businesses/consultancies going on the side and the IBM work culture allows a second income comfortably. Some have family compulsions and need to devote time for personal reasons and hence stick around. The rest 90% won't get jobs outside IBM and are hence like furniture hanging around(and squeezing the lemon dry) until the whole thing collapses around them. Whenever anything screws up, each department passes the ball on to the next(as none of them have the skill-set or a clue of what is going on) as none of them have an idea of what is needed to fix the problem. So the mess keeps increasing till the client gets tired of the crap and terminates the account. No accountability for anything, so even the managers who messed up just get moved around and ensure the screw up the next account. Why do even clients think of IBM - confounds me. I wouldn't hire IBM in a million years with the quality of people which are around. Most US IBMers are good, capable people BUT the same problem that afflicts IBM India, abounds there too. Sycophancy and "diversity" hiring is rampant and hence incapable people are there too BUT the numbers aren't as skewed as India - far lower. From my interactions with US employees, career advancement is based on "who you know" rather than "what you know". This is essentially an IBM wide problem. Most IBM Managers are unskilled beyond belief and the salary packages which they are at - they wouldn't be hired by anybody outside and hence they have no choice. They too are like afore-mentioned furniture in the organization. Sadly, IBM can't be fixed. Most managers are incapable and firing thousands of managers would be the last option(prior to that coming about, those who do the work would get fired/quit) and nobody would be left to do the work. Ask any ex-IBMer whether he/she'd join back - bloody unlikely. So where would people who're capable come from - nowhere. IBM should just shut down and call it a day. This is by far, the worst organization I've worked at in terms of professionalism, work ethic, integrity(Yep, the thing which is most harped on, is the one thing which is completely absent).

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Cons

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4.0
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Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Disclaimer: A lot of what I'm writing below of course depends on the work area and management chain. But I found this to be fairly pervasive policies in IBM in my 9+ years with the company. 1. IBM's policies and management are very flexible when it comes to working remotely or accommodating various life situations (sick days, doctor visits, etc.). Management is encouraged to measure an employee by their work and impact, and not by hours spent at their office. 2. Great colleagues! Though unfortunately, many have been leaving due to the instability of IBM's HW development business. 3. At least in my area, there's a high level of flexibility on which projects should I undertake based on my and my management assessment of business impact.

Cons

1. Unfortunately, IBM still uses the "normal distribution" rating system, where at the end of the year each employee is ranked as a top contributor (5%), above average contributor (15%), average contributor (~75%), and bottom contributor (5%). This curve is difficult to apply in the R&D world, where you may have many members of the team working long and hard hours, and end up being "average contributors" at the end of the year, because there just isn't room for all to be top contributors. 2. The above may not be so disturbing, if only IBM didn't practically cancelled all raises, performance bonuses and incentive for the non top-performers. I've had a consistent "above average" rating in the last 4-5 years, and my raise and performance bonus were ridiculous mere 1.5-2% of my salary. Were I rated "average contributor" I would have gotten NOTHING. So you can imagine that people can go year after year without any raise to their salary. From talking to manager friend, this is IBM's way to eliminate the non-top-performers without having to fire them, as part of its direction of reducing US manpower. 3. Hiring freeze in many areas - again, as part of IBM's attempt to reduce its workforce across North America and Europe we see many jobs move to the India and Far East markets. This is of course upsetting to see local teams shrink and disappear, especially when many great local IBM colleagues and experts begin to drop out. From my experience thus far working with India SW teams - they are still very far away from the standards I would have expected from US and Europe based teams. 4. Poor top down communication about company's and divisions' future. Employees learn from rumors and news websites what's about to come...

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IBM Response
10y
Thanks for sharing your experience, and we're glad that you've had a positive experience working with talented colleagues and taking advantage of IBM's programs. IBM is in the midst of a major transformation, --our Systems business is going through its own changes to strengthen competitiveness. Change is never easy. As part of our transformation, we just launched a whole new approach for how we are coaching employees, delivering feedback and managing reviews. No distribution guidelines or what some think of as 'stacked rankings." What's particularly great is that this was co-designed with our employee base from all over the world... to the tune of hundreds of thousands of page views, comments, on-line debates and discussions. IBMers even named the new system Checkpoint, to reflect the regular feedback rituals we're adopting. Managers are more empowered with the new methodology to help them acknowledge the great work of their teams and help their employees develop professionally. These steps and more are showing up in our employee surveys as well. So IBMers are feeling the change. We are confident these changes will help us in continuing to attract and retain great talent.
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