Thread regarding IBM layoffs

To the OP my question is who is enforcing these RTO policies? I assume your mgr. We employees were told to come in 3 days most of us came in 2 except the Architect. When RAs came around we were all let go and he was saved!! Old boys club. So that’s why I’m curious if mgrs are holding other mgrs accountable in RTO.

@1kze+1tLwCyMC

Yes, sure you do need to get the tacit approval from your fellow spineless crooks and managers. It's what the pathetic American management culture from McKinsey and IBM Consulting are all about. You get your promotions when there are minimal barriers to management positions, but then you make sure that you and IBM HR block any others from getting their well deserved promotions, raises and awards. It's what Indian Bowel Movement management is all about these days. IBM Managers have to stick together, or the entire corrupt system falls apart. It's happening all over, isn't it ? And then IBM HR has the audacity to call that employee growth and management !

It is no wonder that you IBM managers say you are hated universally - it's not because they are no good reasons for this state of affairs. If you simply promote the wrong corporate culture for the wrong reasons, then you get what you ask for and deserve. And yes, it goes back to your families too, as it should.

The results of IBM's heavily matrixed management environment are obvious...that's what everybody is complaining about, after all. Individual performance and accomplishment becomes subordinate to group approval, and the work environment becomes nothing more than a sick popularity contest.

I have to get support for my decisions from my peer managers

It is like that at any company as far as promotions, ratings and pay raises.

No manager can act by himself unless he owns the company.

So that is why you need other managers to know something about what you do. When the 2nd lines or above get together to discuss who they can promote / whatever (with whatever options they've been given from above), you don't want your manager to be the only person in the room that knows you and can vouch for you.

Executives make the calls today on who stays and who goes. HR and Finance determine how many have to go regardless of it being RA, collocation or PIP. Managers are usually given names and told these are the people who have to go this time. Collocations by design expect at least 50% take them. If less than 50%, the target is missed then comes RAs and PIPs. Ultimately it comes down to the toxic culture of the top level executives and the goal to get enough free cash flow to try to get IBM back to being a growth stock.

For managers that are on Software collocation it is pretty simple. If you collocate then you might be fine until the next RA even if you just moved. If you don't want to collocate and you are a manager that is mostly an individual contributor, they just took away the manager flag and reassigned their reports to another manager. In the toxic world of HR, a manager is the person that pushes the buttons in workday, jump through the meaningless hoops of checkpoint and delivers the negative news on the next action to reduce headcount.

In Software there are two dates one for managers collocating and another for non-managers to collocate. Expect an RA in mid-Q3 and another one mid-Q4 around the time or just after the date for collocation completion.

@1hyv+1tLwCyMC

Your narrative is Just typical drivel that I would expect from a pathetic IBM manager without a backbone; it's all about "me, me, me" and to he-l with the employees under me since HR knows best what to do as the "hive mind"; but I will get a rating of 1 at the end of the year.

I'm sure you would put down a bunch of non existent KPIs as your achievements even if you failed to achieve any of them because your FLM didn't know you well enough to go out for drinks with you, as they do in the F&O division. It's still the old boys network that keeps things together until the corporate axe comes a-calling and a-falling. And the axe should fall on F&O and Consulting divisions next as the largest group of thieves and spendthrifts in the company.

After all, who can justify having 20000 VPs, Executives and managers on a payroll at an irrelevant company with falling revenue and over budget projects ? And said company pays these managers and executives for so many non-client facing trips to expensive hotels and bars around the world for unproductive management meetings ? Ever seen any external audit of IBM accounts in any division over the past 15 years ? You never will see this in F&O since the ruthless JK cooks the books all too well. It's what he excels at and covering it all up with talk of AI when he presents the quarterly results (non-GAAP of course).

So yes, there needs to be a target on the back of every single IBM US manager, FLM and VP inside IBM who has been there for more than 10 years, and keeps surviving on one pretext or the other but not for the reason of being efficient or good at their job ? No one should shed one bitter tear when these people are purged from the rolls. The managers and executives have earned their just layoff rewards at a garbage company.

Hasta La Vista, Baby !

@ttg+1tLwCyMC and @1kjs+1tLwCyMC

"As a manager, I have advocated to save specific people from layoffs."

Back in the day, I was in a PBC meeting with my FLM discussing the 2 rating he gave me for that year. I believed that my accomplishments were worthy of a 1 rating (don't we all think that way), but he disagreed. He told me something that day that I never forgot during the rest of my time with the company...

"I have to get support for my decisions from my peer managers, and I barely know you. It's hard enough for me to justify giving you a 2, let alone giving you a 1. Why should I do that?"

For my previous years of service, I was a solid 1 every year. (Yeah, I was one of those people.) After that rating, I put in just enough effort for that manager to get a gentleman's 2...I worked for him for a year or two before switching departments. My PBC ratings after that time were mostly 2s and the occasional 1.

The lesson that day for me was that IBM management operates as a hive mind, with little room for individuality among managers. This applies to RAs as well as PBCs (or PIPs or whatever they call them now). The managers don't make those decisions on their own.

As a manager, I have advocated to save specific people from layoffs. Sometimes that works, other times not. One case, I got the exception and one hr group over rules the hr group who gave the exception.

In a past IBM position, nothing could avoid the layoff, except for a customers lawyers statement saying IBM will be in breach of contract if they laid off my team. Of course people had to take the ethics course “randomly” to not share confidential decisions, someone leaked to the customer, but hey it save peoples careers and top talent. Which IBM found another way to lay them off a year later.

In Software, the deadline was April something... All these managers who did not relocate are already gone. In the hundreds here in the US.

Certainly, good riddance. Bye bye.

Hopefully more to come... Most (not all) managers at IBM are totally useless.

@OP+1tLwCyMC

Good riddance to bad rubbish ! Most managers (97% and higher) inside IBM have ZERO ethics and will throw their employees and reports under the bus when it comes to a layoff. I have yet to hear of a single instance where an IBM manager stood up for the employee or did anything significant to save the employee from a layoff in recent history (in the last 3 years). Blame it on the clown show senior management at IBM. US Managers get what they asked for as shareholders and it good to find they have targets on their backs also.

So go ahead and shed your crocodile tears as you leave after decades...it's not misplaced hate for managers. If you survived this long, you likely threw a lot of good people under the bus to keep your job. Your posting even alludes to this. Some might call it the survival of the fittest...it is what it is.

Hasta la vista, Baby.

WoW! I guess they weren't bluffing this time!