Thread regarding IBM layoffs

It was announced in the internal cloud division kickoff this morning that there will be a reorganization on Jan 30. I would bet on that for a date for more RA's to happen, especially since the 4Q earnings were of very poor (financially engineered) quality and hence the stock has been tanking after-hours

Source: http://wraltechwire.com/ibm-employee-turmoil-grows-even-as-ceo-promises-25-000-jobs/16470366

At what point do you hold a CEO accountable? 19 straight quarters of declining revenue? What company EVER has absorbed that without making a change?

Many of us were laid off due to stupid decisions and knee jerk reactions by this management. They throw out keywords and initiatives without any clue how to carry it out and without seeking any input from those that could carry it out, and when it fails, they lay off all the talent that could make them successful. While they fail, they insulate themselves and continue on destroying the company by simply laying people off. That's not vision, a monkey could do that.

I was RA'd from IBM in February 2015 (worked there 16 years and was 55 years at the time). I hadn't expected it as I had started to transition to another account. Stopped getting updates from the account PE near end of December as they were on vacation. Went to the IBM office January 4th and was asked by the sector leader what I was doing there. When I responded I was hoping to run into the PE I was then told the position was not available - I believe I was lied to so I would finish out the last project. Then the usual stuff followed : Weekly bench meetings; Performance rating of 3 (first time in 16 years) and eventually the RA end of February. I wasn't devastated but felt betrayed by the unprofessional treatment I received.

HOWEVER, started contract work the month after and it has worked out very well - so please keep the faith as there is always another opportunity around corner.

Keep your expectations low through the RA process and hopefully you will get through it better then I did (I had expected to be treated professionally - that was my biggest mistake)

I'm part of the 2017 GTS lay-offs. I was originally with another company - for 33 years - they got rid of 1000 techs and brought IBM in. (What a disaster). We were forced to either accept a 3, 6 or 12 month contract and then receive severance or maybe get hired as full-time employee. Though it was not our choice to go 3rd party, if we did not accept these options then we were considered as quitting and we would lose any severance. Basically they made us kneel, they put a gun to the back of our head and we signed up under duress.

Major IBM Layoffs happening today (Jan 5th) for US GTS division workers. Totals unknown, but I am one of them...What a shame this company has become and will continue to be. Was told my job was being moved to India, yet Ginni just sat in Trumps panel of CEOs to keep jobs in the US. Trump should "fire" her from the panel and stockholders should follow suit.

The management of the company is a disaster, and should be the first to be let go. Total bunch of clowns starting with Ginni. If the company is faltering it is her fault and she should be booted ASAP

In GBS, the sky is falling and it's been that way all year long (2016 & it's common knowledge that more will continue through 2017). Imagine trying to be productive in this environment. A job where you constantly fear being laid off and are powerless to prevent it and have no idea if the person you work for or with will be gone tomorrow. People have stopped trying or have resorted to doing just the bare minimum to stay low on the radar to die slowly. Welcome to everyday life at IBM. Reorg after reorg has desensitized partners and selling teams to the fact that the business unit is suffering so greatly that turning the ship around is practically impossible. I was actually on a org wide sales call where a VP of sales stated he/she was riding it out for a long as possible. What VP of Sales would ever say such a thing?

Another recent meeting in the Midwest revealed a quarterly loss of $180m in GBS alone, and a possible annual loss of $800m. In consulting, this can easily happen on large scale projects due to zero oversight on budget expenses or under bidding projects just to win the work, welcome to the new norm. Another norm is sending onsite resources from India to a US customer site last minute because there isn't any local resources available anymore. US utilization is above 95% which is grueling for a consulting company. Average is roughly 60%, that mean each person is doing their job plus a third of someone else's. For new projects, it means if you sell one? you probably can't deliver it so scrutiny of selling new projects have screeched to a slow crawl. If we do deliver most work most work offshore or near shored with under skilled staff or completely outsourced which again kills profitability! So you see the downward spiral continues. Mgt and sector leaders franly are asleep at the wheel. No one, and I mean no one at IBM cares about profitability of a project, there is no oversight at all and it's a pandemic problem that has gone on for several years now and your fear that this is the end is real...if you are in GBS.

Hope is the last driver for employees. Hope that the cloud will offer new growing revenue streams but that is not happening fast enough and software partners have poorly executed their own strategies which leaves IBM gasping for air hoping the good ole days will return. They won't.

Watson. Does Watson even work. Ask any IBMer what Watson is or to define what Cognitive is and how IBM's Cognitive strategy differs from other IT firms and you will get an uncoordinated, undefined generic answer that differs from person to person. Want to know why? Because no one really knows. Most IBM employees are convinced this is smoke and mirrors. Sell the vision, who cares how or if it works, it's the future.

So I conclude my friends with validation that another RA is slated for mid/ late December based on utilization rates. If you aren't on a project you are toast. Delivery is skeleton, each of these cuts are into bone!

Prepare for the worst. I am.

Any updates on RAs here?

We'll have three RAs in 2017 - this is consistent with what we've seen in both 2016 and 2017. If our sales numbers continue to melt down, you will see a couple more RAs for sure.

Good luck to all.

The 20-20-60 rule (20% local, 20% near-shore and 60% off-shore) is still valid as an objective IBM wants to achieve by end of 2017. As a result you may see other, sometime very brutal RAs in the near future. Every geo and every business line will be impacted.

Now, this is funny @pjw:

This is what it looks like when a dinosaur dies.

@1pjh nails it

Answers:

1.) Timing of Resource Actions – are we going to see quarterly boosts throughout 2017?

Yes

2.) Size of layoffs – are we going to exceed, in size, 2016 layoffs – should we brace for a mega cut?

Yes, Yes

3.) Geographies – where will 2017 layoffs going to be concentrated? East? West? US vs other geographies?

US & Canada ( IBM = India Business Machines )

4.) Verticals – What groups will be hit the most as it relates to the upcoming resource actions?

Everyone, no group is safe... They will all be outsourced.

What you need to do is start a pool on what day IBM will close its doors here in the US. US customers are now looking to hire engineers internally. IBM is no longer a trusted company.

And certainly any money that IBM gains by pulling benefits like the FHA money or lump-sum pension will be quantified in the financials as revenue for cloud, strategic initiatives, or Watson.

We're not done with 2016 yet. Rumor has another round of RA in November, and then a re-organization and RA in January. Focus is likely to be on areas like world-wide technical sales, among other areas, and finally getting around to culling the managers, who are now managing fewer people, and reducing layers of management, which IBM has been criticized as having too many of. There is also rumor that the 3-month 'zombie' period may go out the window, being cut to one month in the November RA to get people out the door before they qualify for the 401k match. Between RAs, other games will be played like 'relocate or lose your job'. Other rumors are that IBM may take the Future Health Account money away, allowing them to recoup millions. Now that managers are getting cut, as in the last RA, they are beginning to speak more freely. Internally, there is a great deal of strife as this stress takes its toll on everyone. Sales people fighting with product management teams because they can't get the features that their customers want, and hence can't sell. Sales and tech sales fighting with development teams because the products are so buggy they can't even be demo'd without embarrassments. Support under heavy stress and under the gun because of many bad production outages, such as the Australian census and blown payroll projects in Queensland and Ontario, although very few are made public since the companies affected don't want their customers to know the systems they use are unreliable and unsecure. Executives are selling stock and bailing out. Ex-IBMers who are now at customers are poaching the remaining talent that IBM has, the ones they didn't want to RA, and they are leaving for greener pastures. It takes a long time for a tall tower to fall, as it leans more and more and eventually loses to gravity and its own weight. This is what it looks like when a dinosaur dies.