Thread regarding IBM layoffs

Yeah, for 2020 I comparison shopped against the local marketplace and it would have been cheaper and given my family more coverage to use a marketplace plan instead of the company provided healthcare. Fortunately my wife's company was an even better option so we went with that.

Very true. IBMs US medical plans make Obamacare look tempting. Coupled with the lack of raises and bonuses, the medical costs alone have resulted in less year to year net pay for me.

Burden rate high due to IBM having good benefits?? Thanks for the laugh!
Why does anyone think IBM has good benefits?
Their medical benefits are much worse than most start ups.
I worked at 2 small tech companies before coming to IBM. We had medical covered 100% with no deductible and no co-pay for 1 person. For a family up to 5 it was $50 a month.
IBM benefits are some of the worst.
iBM also does their 401K match at end of the year vs. per paycheck.
IBM also pays below market rates for most roles.
IBM BURDEN rate is extremely low compared to most.
The BURDEN IBM has is in buying back shares and their pension plan.

If you look at the 4 divisions of IBM, GBS and Systems are most likely the most exposed to the pandemic, thus their implementation of the vacation policy. I say this, as they depend on face to face interactions to sell their wares. The lack of being able to make sales calls is going to reduce their productivity quite substantially. Cognitive has exposure due to TPP, but not as much. GTS has little exposure as they are mostly perform. So let’s do the math. Does Systems and GBS fall 20-25%? Does cognitive fall 5%? Does GTS fall their normal bleed of 4-7%? If yes, and you don’t see a V shaped recovery, you are looking at a 12-15% fall in revenue which equates to a 15% fall in head count. That means 50-55k of cuts just to break even before any sell off or spin off. You can see the future and it’s not pretty

"We need cuts in the executive ranks and we need it now"
Long overdue, as well as needing cuts with internal IBM teams that add bloat with zero value.

Good point about the burden rate. This impacts Services tremendously. High burden rate and massive internal bureaucracy bloat our bill rates. Now compared to Big 4, our bill rates are low. BUT IBM is expected to deliver on the order of a cheap SI like Wipro, Infosys, etc. If Services was delivering higher value work, higher bill rates could be sustained. Unfortunately Partners have consistently failed to sell higher value work so we are stuck. Also, incompetent and poorly trained B9-10s know so little about project finances to where they see it is more cost effective to have contractors fill roles than full time staff, so you get an over burden of contractors. In many countries, including the US, you see this kind of abuse of the system. For executives, all their chickens are coming home to roost. We need cuts in the executive ranks and we need it now.

I believe it really boils down to burden rate per employee. Burden rates are one of the primary measures that companies use to compare their work forces. IBM has a fairly high burden rate due to good benefits, high average age, and low productivity per employee, due mostly to poor innovation and project selection/ management. Compare this to Microsoft, Google, or Amazon. Lower average age, salaries comparable, or slightly higher, and higher employee productivity, due mostly to innovation, and better project selection/management, bring their burden rates down quite quickly. IBM could be trying to lower their burden rate to make a spinoff look more palatable to whoever has expressed an interest. IBM already took a swing at this a couple of years ago when they throttled back the 401k match in GTS. They took another swing at it over the last 5-10 years via offshoring. This is most likely yet one more swing to make a spinoff viable

90-day advance notice when requiring

Since the message merely "encourages" not "requires" it means that 90 day clock has not even started. Maybe it will be Q3 by the time they realize this and send the "will require" message so you won't be required to actually take it until Q4.

In California, a DLSE internal memorandum indicates employers must provide a minimum of a 90-day advance notice when requiring exempt employees to take mandatory vacation/PTO.

So that means it would be Q3 for California. There are probably many countries that have similar rules.

When high executives in every brand all send the same "recommendation" that means it's mandatory at a level above them.

39 years and really, really hoping for some kind of package to be announced really soon. I am planning a 6/30/2020 retirement and am avoiding telling FLM until next month as we all anticipate an RA and I'm hoping they make some kind of decent offer. (I know that's totally unlikely, but a person can hope).

actually have 25 years of service, still no encouragement from FLM to do this.

@1vcc that has been my experience as well, not calling something mandatory but forcing you to do it is for legal or PR reasons.

@1gmx - obviously someone is a new hire, fresh out of school. Let me help you here. When your manager says "strongly encouraged", that means "do it....or you'll pay the penalty later for disobeying me". IBM is the third company I've worked for since out of school 10yrs ago and that is enforced more here than the other two I worked at. Still, it was enforced at all 3 companies.

Hope this helps.

TSS email said it was STRONGLY ENCOURAGED. It did not say mandatory Vacation is required in NA.

TR was the person responsible for the furlough in systems a number of years back. They picked two weeks and then we had to decide which one to take off. Mgrs were told to make sure that everyone did not take the same week so that there would be coverage. That was such a waste of time, nothing got done those two weeks. other then IBM saying a lot of money.

For those who elect to participate in a vacation (can they really force this?), upon your return, in order to avoid having to work double-speed to catch up, there is a technique called "email bankruptcy" that can be very helpful.

Simply "Select All" then "Delete" .. from that point forward you are caught up in real-time with no stress of any backlog. Do this for email, slack, voicemail, and anything else. What happened on vacation stays on vacation. If it is really important it will be re-sent. About 95% of it is unimportant and you will miss nothing except stress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_bankruptcy

In 1992, before the Great ITO-2 Diaspora at the end of July, Big Blew made everyone take a weeks vacation. This is nothing new, and it certainly has nothing to do with your health!

My guess is it’s related to both the pending RA and a sell off. If it were about our “well being” or about ensuring we all don’t take time off at once in Q3, they would have asked us to take “Earned” time only. So much for your transparency lie, Arvind. If I were in GBS, GTS or Systems, I would be extra concerned since they’re getting “special” instructions. Since Tom also said this was “strongly encouraged” rather than “mandatory” I plan on ignoring his vapid request. Ginni should help and forego her $20M bonus since the rest of us got zero or less than zero taking cost of living into account, but that would require Ginni to have a soul. FU, IBM.

Never got any country specific or business unit specific information after the email 2 days ago. GBS NA. What does this mean?

Definition of IBM vacation = still work, people call, manager says have to check email. All due to such bare bone staffing already. I usually end up working 20 hours in vacation week. Basically I work for half price. IBM hates it when you take vacation and actually don’t work.

IBM has shown no interest in my well being for many years now and I don't believe they suddenly decided to start. Of course this is just to remove liability from the 2Q report. What happens to the employees that had vacation plans for later in the year? Do they have to cancel those family plans to take vacation in the worst time of year (kids are in school, weather is not so great).

Not just GTS getting a bum deal in NA. Also being asked to take off 5 days the next month and it can't be a personal holiday.

Yes, it is sad how in Arvind's livestream today he mentioned the importance of transparency.
This appears to be anything but.
Here is what the note should have said -
"Due to the downturn in our business, we are doing everything we can do avoid or delay the Large Resource Action originally planned for Q1 and pushed into Q2.
To that end, we are asking all employees to take 1 week off this quarter.
This will remove over $5Billion in Liability from our balance sheet and position us to come out of this stronger in Q3.
Thank You. "

and boom just like that Arvind blew it!!
Imagine getting an email saying listen team, times are tough due to the virus, the economy is in a downturn and we are doing our best to maintain employment. But we need you to do your part, would you please consider taking five vacation days so we can get through this together and position ourselves for the huge snapback later in the year? Will get through this together. The IBMers I know would have probably done even more if asked that way.

The real insult to our intelligence is the bold EARNED VACATION statement. If they really cared about our health, it would be time off period! Everyone should code it as personal choice holidays. Who’s with me?

this is super sneaky in my opinion! I have been told other companies have asked the same this week, IBM is not the only one making this strange request, in the the name of "your well being". Who the heck knows anymore.

I thought I was being cynical, My initial thought soon as I read the email was, well, we are slow now, if they do not take VA now and we do an RA, then we have to pay for unsed vacation days. Anyone with many years of service accrues about 2.1 days per month through the year. Doing the math by end of Q2,that is 12.6 days of earned vacation, multiply that times ??? How many people and yes, a massive liabilty has been erased. Never in my 27 year history have they asked us to do this, I wish so bad it was because they care, maybe back 27 years ago but not now, I wouldnt be surprised if they come back and say, oh no, cant take Holidays, has to be vacation days. Sigh

GICs are not eligible per the email. That means, the delivery centers in India, Eastern Europe, Brazil.
I think we all see the writing on the wall folks. We are being replaced.

GTS NA senior leadership team is doing an override.

Asking that you take the 5 days in April!! And only if that’s not possible then take them in May, please.

It's global, also got announced for belgium, netherlands and luxembourg. Take 5 days in q2, unless you can't because of customer obligations.

Has to be financially in IBMs best interest or they would not waste their time with an email. Watch your back.

Remember vacation is earned as you work thru the year. This says the folks over 10 years are not adding to IBM’s owed payments. The folks under 10 years are actually helping IBM slightly as the owed liability is retired by a day or two. In looking at the total health of the marketplace (10% unemployment and rising, face to face sales visits pretty much non-existent, and work places on skeleton crews), this seems to be a Reasonable ask of the workforce given a worldwide pandemic. NOTE it doesn’t hurt the spinoff speculation either

I suspect they want to reduce liability on the books. There is no way I can be convinced that the request is based on their concern for my well being.

Just drop the axe already and quit toying with the mice thank you.

Dr Kelly put out a similar note earlier today too. Exactly the same terms. Take a week in 2nd q

Take all your unused PC holiday time first before vac days.

If you are able to get the further guidance coming from GTS, GBS and Systems, please post here.

My calculation on a weeks' vacation and reduced liability =
350,000 employees times an average 1 week wage of $1,000 = over $3 Billion in reduced liability.

Company I worked for a while back announced they were moving to unlimited vacation, removed entire PTO from their balance sheet; year later they were acquired.

I'm surprised to see this as it doesn't apply to Red Hat and I was told that our quarterly bonus' would be implemented across IBM now that Jim is in charge.

I think I can relax, regroup and recharge on my five allocated personal choice holidays better than I can on five earned vacation days? If they are worried about YOUR well being why does it have to be earned? I mean since IBM is on the 2020 list of most ethical companies they wouldn't be trying to screw you out of vacation on a layoff would they? Surely not.

I think we should all coordinate and take 5 days the same week...