Performance has NOTHING to do with Layoffs (Resource Actions) at IBM. It's purely a financial decision driven by the Finance Organization. If you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you'll get a call out of the blue from your Manager and only have 30 days notice that you're being fired by IBM. So, update your Résumé and start looking NOW, so you don't get su---r punched like so many other good, hard-working employees at IBM have.
Well said, @qaf+1c9S8gjp.
IBM definitely RA’s based on burden rate and salary. You would too, if you were trying to restructure. I would add yet one more qualifying event in IBM’s evaluation. The other qualifying event is “does IBM consider you strategic”? If they don’t consider your product strategic, your performance doesn’t matter to them and you will be shown the door no matter how large your current attainment, or skill level. You can use Power systems as your example. IBM approx 4 years ago decided Power was not strategic vs Intel. AIX and OS/400 were deemed to be milked until they died, and Power Linux was considered stillborn. So what happened? Power sales have declined for 16 quarters strait (year over year revenue declines) as there is no one left to sell it and as such revenue is down from 6 billion to approx 750 million. Power isn’t strategic, so the newbies are put in there to milk it. YES there are always a few exceptions SAP on enterprise boxes is a niche, but those are few and far between
RAs occur at IBM because it is struggling and must cuts to make the numbers look good.
RAs do not occur at companies that are growing and hiring like crazy.
@1vrw+1cb04k5G - NOT fake news. I've been here longer than you and have seen plenty of high performers RA'd. On more than one occasion I had to pick my jaw up from the floor after hearing who got cut "this time around"
@1vrw+1cb04k5G
It didn't matter that my managers all loved the work that I did.
All that mattered was that IBM didn't have enough work for my division, which caused me and many others to be placed on utilization "PIPs." IBM didn't even have the decency to give us an RA layoff.
Fake news. 18 years several teams and orgs… never seen any of our top performers get cut. Always been the ones just getting by just “doing their job”. No one who put in a little extra effort to get recognized was cut.
@cpv+1cb04k5G On my last account my co-worker and myself made little over 200k a year between us to support Microsoft, Unix and Apple servers. We were both RA's same time and in our upper 50s. They offshored all support to India and paid a cheap 3rd party company for any touches of servers, as to reload operating systems. To IBM is about the dollar and showing investors return on their money
IBM looks at salary and burden rate - which equates to age and longevity. Highest overall cost people get whacked. As a Sr Manager - I know. Shameful.
Again, still wrong. I commented on this post when it was posted the other day.
The ugly truth is you can absolutely beat the RA list. You cannot beat the process, since someone will have to be substituted, but people have most definitely been saved from an RA based on performance or essential-ness to the business.
It’s not purely financial.
The only safe ones are the spouses. One should avoid working at the locations who allow married couples working along side each other.
It’s just so ghetto
That's a true statement. Seniority may have very little reason to avoid a RA, but still financial. I've seen people get all excellent on the evaluation one month and the next get an RA notice. Never mind the customer relationship/service damage, it's the penny counters pulling all the strings for the board and stockholders.
This is true even in the sales organization, which is INCREDIBLY RARE. Every other sales organization does layoffs based on performance, except ours. If you're on the wrong team, the wrong vertical, etc. they're indiscriminant. I had a few people on my team who crushed their numbers get laid off the next quarter. I mean, these are guys who cleared $400K-$500K and they're pushed out. When I saw that, I knew it was just a matter of time the Russian Roulette game turns against me.