Thread regarding IBM layoffs

@asjz In my 26 years at IBM one thing has held true 99% of the time through all the RAs. Those who worry about losing their job, rarely do. So you are done! Don't worry they've had plenty of time to sharpen the blade for this one so it will be quick for you. Then you can go wonder why me.

Wait for tomorrow morning and then you will say, oh this time it is correct.

The toxicity on this forum is hilarious. Layoffs are always <1 week away apparently. Some salty folks lingering on this forum cause they cant find other jobs. 4/4 will come and go and they'll say "oh but wait it's now 4/11!

Wait for 4/4 (Tuesday)

It's now 3/30 today - so what's the verdict? Did it happen at scale or what? Does anyone care to share if the prediction in the headline has any accuracy?

You are wasting your time IBM laughs at WARN

I’m I the only one to check the NY Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) every morning to see when IBM will announce their RA? Scroll to “View WARN database”. I type “IBM” or “International”… Nothing yet… One more day :)

Blah blah blah Everyday your @$$ is getting closer to your lips. So pucker up IBMers and get ready to kiss it goodbye.

In 2022 a reduction in head count caused most stocks to drop as it indicated you didn’t have anymore opportunities. in 2023 a reduction of head count is an interpretation of efficiency. There are two other interpretations both not good for IBM. The 3900 was considered stranded costs and was first brought up in the Oct 2022 analyst call. It was something IBM was hoping to avoid as they has abandoned a piece of a 4 billion dollar health investment under Ginni. Essentially they didn’t want to air their failure. Second is IBM is trying like crazy to drop headcount via PIP, redeploy, and attrition. There is zero severance if you get dropped that way. Remember dropping employees in 2022 was considered “no future opportunities” thus bad news. Again just speculation

So then based on the "290-315k revenue per employee. Given the 2023 revenue of 63 billion" from the comment below - why would IBM come out and say 3,900 jobs instead of a much higher number (~60k)? Wouldn't that get more of an immediate stock jump?

Cutting the dividend doesn’t drive any more efficiency for IBM. It does free up cash flow for purchases or debt service, but doesn’t drive efficiency. Remember Wall Street is keeping score via revenue per employee. Every single layoff this year was driven by that metric (microsoft, Amazon, sales force, meta, etc etc) 2023 is all about efficiency IBM can’t drive the top line number much beyond inflation (5%) so they have to cut the bottom line number (costs). I look for IBM to exit out of non-strategic businesses, and low margin businesses even it they are strategic. IBM has been historically efficient for their business model when they operate in the 290-315k revenue per employee. Given the 2023 revenue of 63 billion you can back into the head count number

Will never happen. It's the choosen stock of widows and trust fund babies.

The current revenue could support the current headcount just fine if the company wasn't slavishly devoted to maintaining and increasing the dividend. Cut the dividend and maybe you could fund real product development again, rather than just buying and cannibalizing other companies.

It sure appears something is going to happen within IBM, as they can’t sustain the current headcount given the current revenue. IBM has to get more efficient, and you either grow revenue, or you cut costs. Given IBM’s forecasted 5% growth, cuts have to come into play to meet their financial metrics. IBM has been slowly lowering their headcount since last July using PIP, redundancy, layoffs, and hiring slow down (eg attrition). You can verify this by IBM’s annual report They stated 288k average employment over 2022, but in Jan 2023, the CFO said the head count was 260k. That’s a shrink rate of approx 5k per month. I suspect IBM has continued that program and has just about run out of eligible candidates. That means the only thing left is withdrawal from market places which means layoffs and severance plays. IBM may have shown their hand last week in Australia when they hit the consulting division with 10-15% cuts Their excuse was they had lost two dept of defense bids, thus withdrawal from those markets. If this all holds true IBM is heading for 210-220 headcount.

You will be contacted by your blue pages managers

Same BS from @OP.

Can someone explain why the need for an in country manager as opposed to just a functional mgr? Some have no in country mgr? In that case how is one RAed?

I know a specific area of recruiting where anyone not based in one specific city is being laid off regardless of performance, their willingness to move, etc. burning it to the ground in the name of saving a buck. It’s disgraceful.

Actually, they can no longer enforce those gag orders in the separation agreements - and yes, it's retroactive: https://www.nlrb.gov/news-outreach/news-story/nlrb-general-counsel-issues-memo-with-guidance-to-regions-on-severance

Last I heard was that they were aiming for notification 2 wks prior to the earnings report, which would make it either Wed April 5 or Thurs April 6.

If you weren't re-deployed then RA generally gets you 30 days to find another job within IBM. Full access. Spend that time in YL/O'Reilly spiffing up currency in jobs. Also good luck with finding a job as the re-deployed have sucked them up so pickings are few.

If you were re-deployed then I don't know - but I'd guess since we (yes, I) have already had 4-5 months to (fail) to be accepted for a GOM position - have had our "find a job time" so I'm betting we go straight to "outta here"

GOM still has a fair number of jobs - so I'd guess normal RA'd would still get the 30 days.

Then any pseudo severance pay (if you sign the contract to "fuggetaboutyourtimethere")

So what is expected of the employee once they get RAed in terms of working notice? Do they work for another month or two? Or is access removed immediately after they read the script? I assume they mail a shipping label to return workstation and Am/ex gets cancelled right away. What about mobile phone - do people have option to keep their current phone number at least?

These things are NEVER performance based It's 75% who they want to get rid of (read as salary and age) and then 25% unprotected youngsters (read as no parent/uncle/aunt executives) to skew the average age down enough to deny what has really occurred.

Making sh!t up again.

I suspect IBM will proceed in 2 waves. First wave already underway will be performance based. Under a certain productivity number results in dismissal. NOTE over the 1st q this was expanded as the economy got softer, and all of IBM’s competitors were also participating in dismissing folks. (essentially IBM didn’t want to feed the competition). The 2nd round will be IBM doing the “meta” efficiency play, by withdrawing from certain markets, and streamlining operations. IBM has to get this done sooner rather than later, as they have already shown their economic forecast to Wall Street and will not de-commit to that. Restructuring charges tend to take 6 months to be effective as that’s how long it takes for the savings to catch up with the costs. I would expect IBM to take a charge before the shareholders meeting in April. You will know how serious IBM is depending on the charge. 1-1.5 billion (approx 16k of headcount on average) = meh 1.5 - 2.5 billion (approx 26k of head count on average) = playing follow the leader with Wall Street. 2.5-3.5 billion (approx 39k of head count) = we really are trying to get serious about our new go to market strategy. When Gerstner took over IBM, he implemented a 20% headcount reduction over 18 months to streamline IBM and implement the era of services. If the same were implemented today, that would result in a 52k headcount reduction and a 4 billion dollar charge. NOTE IBM has an additional tool in hand today (eg PIP / utilization), which most likely will help the charges IBM needs to take for the restructuring.

IBM don’t RA on Fridays.

These dates aren't real.

I'm sure it's coming - especially after Accenture announced 19,000 impending layoffs the other day. You have to be sure Arvind and the Chipmunks up in Armonk are itching to do the same.

At least in Consulting, the attrition is crazy right now, and nearly everyone is on a productivity PIP. Everyone's either on a PIP or WAS on a PIP or is GOING on a PIP.

If you're back office anything, zero client interaction, in a support role, don't generate revenue or sales for IBM, you should consider yourselves at risk. If you don't produce or earn, you're definitely at risk.

Easiest way to stay safe these days is to be billing hours or generating revenue. Anything other than that and you're at risk for a PIP or a layoff.

The D day is not 3/30. Remember Is ibm, the whole action is delayed on the usual bureaucratic processes. The targets are 5 geographies including NA. The new timeline is “sometime in April”.

It will be your in country because they are connected to the proper HR partner. It will be a phone call between 10am and 2pm and will be preceded by a "hey got a minute to talk" ping. It will be quick, certainly less than 15 min as they read from a script then ask if you have any questions that they will not answer. You'll be told that the next communication will be from HR. If you don't particularly care for this manager, now is the time to unload on them because you most likely will never hear from them again. If you reach out to them they will not answer the phone and you get an email or text respone saying to work with your HR partner Especially if you work remote. They are in legal mode at this point and afraid to say anything you can use in a law suit And forget about getting any info from your functional mgr They have already been given a gag order. It's on a Thursday 90% of the time and a Friday 0% It's literally an unwritten IBM policy to never fire on a Friday They are afraid you will go home and do something stupid. Yes that could happen any day but HR really believes it. And in the event it does happen does not want that to ever be presented to a jury. BTW this all holds true for Managers too. My close personal friend was an FLM in 2018. The Thursday she informed 3 of her reports that they were "selected to participate in the current resource action" Actual words from the HR provided script She was told to inform her upline when the dirty work was done and then she got the same exact treatment. Good luck everyone

How is the 3/30 RA message delivered? Does it come from functional manager or in country mgr (in case they aren’t the same person)? Slack or WebEx or come to the office? Boiler plate script or heartfelt? Full 30 minutes or quick 5 min? Any reason for 3/30 (Thursday) as opposed to 3/31 Friday?

I'm hoping! When I saw re-deployment at >> GOM band available jobs I looked outside. Even with the Tech layoffs landed a ~20pct raise. Now just looking for my severance!

Same here

I received mine yesterday. 🥲

Whoever posted that, please give more. What did you hear? Which business?