Welcome to IBM Employee News and Links

Quick Links:

Get involved! Insider trading After IBM Lenovo Employee Discount

Previous highlights:

August 28, 2010 August 21, 2010 August 14, 2010 August 7, 2010 July 31, 2010 July 24, 2010 July 17, 2010 July 10, 2010 July 3, 2010 June 26, 2010 June 19, 2010 June 12, 2010 June 5, 2010 May 29, 2010 May 22, 2010 May 15, 2010 May 8, 2010 May 1, 2010 April 24, 2010 April 17, 2010 April 10, 2010 April 3, 2010 March 27, 2010 March 20, 2010 March 13, 2010 March 6, 2010 February 27, 2010 February 20, 2010 February 13, 2010 February 6, 2010 January 30, 2010 January 23, 2010 January 16, 2010 January 9, 2010 January 2, 2010 December 26, 2009 December 19, 2009 December 12, 2009 December 5, 2009 November 28, 2009 November 21, 2009 November 14, 2009 November 7, 2009 October 31, 2009 October 24, 2009 October 17, 2009 October 10, 2009 October 3, 2009 September 26, 2009 September 19, 2009 September 12, 2009 September 5, 2009 August 29, 2009 August 22, 2009 August 15, 2009 August 8, 2009 August 1, 2009 July 25, 2009 July 18, 2009 July 11, 2009 July 4, 2009 June 27, 2009 June 20, 2009 June 13, 2009 June 6, 2009 May 30, 2009 May 23, 2009 May 16, 2009 May 9, 2009 May 2, 2009 April 25, 2009 April 18, 2009 April 11, 2009 April 4, 2009 March 28, 2009 March 21, 2009 March 14, 2009 March 7, 2009 February 28, 2009 February 21, 2009 February 14, 2009 February 7, 2009 January 31, 2009 January 24, 2009 January 17, 2009 January 10, 2009 January 03, 2009 December 27, 2008 December 20, 2008 December 13, 2008 December 6, 2008 November 29, 2008 November 22, 2008 November 15, 2008 November 8, 2008 November 1, 2008 October 25, 2008 October 18, 2008 October 11, 2008 October 4, 2008 September 27, 2008 September 20, 2008 September 13, 2008 September 6, 2008 August 30, 2008 August 23, 2008 August 16, 2008 August 9, 2008 August 2, 2008 July 26, 2008 July 19, 2008 July 12, 2008 July 5, 2008 June 28, 2008 June 21, 2008 June 14, 2008 June 7, 2008 May 31, 2008 May 24, 2008 May 17, 2008 May 10, 2008 2008 Stock Meeting April 26, 2008 April 19, 2008 April 12, 2008 April 5, 2008 March 29, 2008 March 22, 2008 March 15, 2008 March 8, 2008 March 1, 2008 February 16, 2008 February 9, 2008 February 2, 2008 January 26, 2008 January 19, 2008 January 12, 2008 January 5, 2008 December 29, 2007 December 22, 2007 December 15, 2007 December 8, 2007 December 1, 2007 November 24, 2007 November 17, 2007 November 10, 2007 November 3, 2007 October 27, 2007 October 20, 2007 October 13, 2007 October 6, 2007 September 29, 2007 September 22, 2007 September 15, 2007 September 8, 2007 September 1, 2007 August 25, 2007 August 18, 2007 August 11, 2007 August 4, 2007 July 28, 2007 July 21, 2007 July 14, 2007 July 7, 2007 June 30, 2007 June 23, 2007 June 16, 2007 June 9, 2007 June 2, 2007 May 26, 2007 May 19, 2007 May 12, 2007 May 5, 2007 2007 Stock Meeting April 21, 2007 April 14, 2007 April 7, 2007 March 31, 2007 March 24, 2007 March 17, 2007 March 10, 2007 March 3, 2007 February 24, 2007 February 17, 2007 February 10, 2007 February 3, 2007 January 27, 2007 January 20, 2007 January 13, 2007 January 6, 2007 December 30, 2006 December 23, 2006 December 16, 2006 December 9, 2006 December 2, 2006 November 25, 2006 November 18, 2006 November 11, 2006 November 4, 2006 October 28, 2006 October 21, 2006 October 14, 2006 October 7, 2006 September 30, 2006 September 23, 2006 September 16, 2006 September 9, 2006 September 2, 2006 August 26, 2006 August 19, 2006 August 12, 2006 August 5, 2006 July 29, 2006 July 22, 2006 July 15, 2006 July 8, 2006 July 1, 2006 June 24, 2006 June 17, 2006 June 10, 2006 June 3, 2006 May 27, 2006 May 20, 2006 May 13, 2006 May 6, 2006 2006 Stock Meeting April 22, 2006 April 15, 2006 April 8, 2006 April 1, 2006 March 25, 2006 March 18, 2006 March 11, 2006 March 4, 2006 February 25, 2006 February 18, 2006 February 11, 2006 February 4, 2006 January 28, 2006 January 21, 2006 January 14, 2006 January 7, 2006 December 31, 2005 December 24, 2005 December 17, 2005 December 10, 2005 December 03, 2005 November 26, 2005 November 19, 2005 November 12, 2005 November 5, 2005 October 29, 2005 October 22, 2005 October 15, 2005 October 8, 2005 October 1, 2005 September 24, 2005 September 17, 2005 September 10, 2005 September 3, 2005 August 27, 2005 August 20, 2005 August 13, 2005 August 6, 2005 July 30, 2005 July 23, 2005 July 16, 2005 July 9, 2005 July 2, 2005 June 25, 2005 June 18, 2005 June 11, 2005 June 4, 2005 May 28, 2005 May 21, 2005 May 14, 2005 May 7, 2005 April 30, 2005 April 23, 2005 April 16, 2005 April 9, 2005 April 2, 2005 March 26, 2005 March 19, 2005 March 12, 2005 March 5, 2005 February 26, 2005 February 19, 2005 February 12, 2005 February 5, 2005 January 29, 2005 January 22, 2005 January 15, 2005 January 8, 2005 January 1, 2005 December 25, 2004 December 18, 2004 December 11, 2004 December 4, 2004 November 27, 2004 November 20, 2004 November 13, 2004 November 6, 2004 October 30, 2004 October 23, 2004 October 16, 2004 October 9, 2004 October 2, 2004 September 25, 2004 September 18, 2004 September 11, 2004 September 4, 2004 August 28, 2004 August 21, 2004 August 14, 2004 August 7, 2004 July 31, 2004 July 24, 2004 July 17, 2004 July 10, 2004 July 3, 2004 June 26, 2004 June 19, 2004 June 5, 2004 May 29, 2004 May 22, 2004 May 15, 2004 May 8, 2004 2004 Stock Meeting April 24, 2004 April 10, 2004 April 3, 2004 March 27, 2004 March 20, 2004 March 13, 2004 March 6, 2004 February 28, 2004 February 21, 2004 February 14, 2004 February 7, 2004 February 1, 2004 January 18, 2004 December 27, 2003 December 20, 2003 December 13, 2003 December 6, 2003 November 29, 2003 November 22, 2003 November 15, 2003 November 8, 2003 November 1, 2003 October 25, 2003 October 18, 2003 October 11, 2003 October 4, 2003 September 27, 2003 September 20, 2003 September 13, 2003 September 6, 2003 August 30, 2003 August 23, 2003 August 16, 2003 August 9, 2003 Pension Lawsuit Win July 26, 2003 July 19, 2003 July 12, 2003 July 5, 2003 June 28, 2003 June 21, 2003 June 14, 2003 June 7, 2003 May 31, 2003 May 24, 2003 May 17, 2003 May 10, 2003 2003 Stock Meeting April 26, 2003 April 19, 2003 April 12, 2003 April 5, 2003 March 29, 2003 March 22, 2003 March 15, 2003 March 8, 2003 March 1, 2003 February 22, 2003 February 15, 2003 February 8, 2003 February 1, 2003 January 25, 2003 January 18, 2003 January 11, 2003 January 4, 2003 December 28, 2002 December 21, 2002 December 14, 2002 December 7, 2002 November 30, 2002 November 23, 2002 November 16, 2002 November 9, 2002 November 2, 2002 October 26, 2002 October 19, 2002 October 12, 2002 October 5, 2002 September 28, 2002 September 21, 2002 September 14, 2002 September 7, 2002 August 31, 2002 August 24, 2002 August 17, 2002 August 10, 2002 August 3, 2002 July 27, 2002 July 20, 2002 July 13, 2002 July 6, 2002 June 29, 2002 June 22, 2002 June 15, 2002 June 8, 2002 June 1, 2002 May 25, 2002 May 18, 2002 May 11, 2002 2002 Stock Meeting April 27, 2002 April 20, 2002 April 13, 2002 April 6, 2002 March 30, 2002 March 23, 2002 March 16, 2002 March 9, 2002 March 2, 2002 February 23, 2002 February 16, 2002 February 9, 2002 February 2, 2002 January 26, 2002 January 19, 2002 January 12, 2002 January 5, 2002 December 29, 2001 December 22, 2001 December 15, 2001 December 8, 2001 December 1, 2001 November 24, 2001 November 17, 2001 November 10, 2001 November 3, 2001 October 27, 2001 October 20, 2001 October 13, 2001 October 6, 2001 September 29, 2001 September 22, 2001 September 15, 2001 September 8, 2001 September 1, 2001 August 25, 2001 August 18, 2001 August 11, 2001 August 4, 2001 July 28, 2001 July 21, 2001 July 14, 2001 July 7, 2001 June 30, 2001 June 23, 2001 June 16, 2001 June 9, 2001 June 2, 2001 May 26, 2001 May 19, 2001 May 12, 2001 May 5, 2001 2001 Stock Meeting April 21, 2001 April 14, 2001 April 7, 2001 March 31, 2001 March 24, 2001 March 17, 2001 March 10, 2001 March 3, 2001 February 24, 2001 February 17, 2001 February 10, 2001 February 3, 2001 January 27, 2001 January 20, 2001 January 13, 2001 January 6, 2001 December 30, 2000 December 23, 2000 December 16, 2000 December 9, 2000 December 2, 2000 November 24, 2000 November 17, 2000 November 10, 2000 November 4, 2000 October 28, 2000 October 21, 2000 October 14, 2000 October 7, 2000 September 30, 2000 September 23, 2000 September 16, 2000 September 9, 2000 September 2, 2000 August 26, 2000 August 19, 2000 August 12, 2000 July 29, 2000 July 22, 2000 July 15, 2000 July 1, 2000 June 24, 2000 June 17, 2000 June 10, 2000 June 3, 2000 May 27, 2000 May 20, 2000 May 13, 2000 May 6, 2000 April, 2000

Highlights—February 13, 2010

• The Register (United Kingdom): Big Blue eye glares at UK workforce. By John Oates. Excerpts: IBM has confirmed it is considering making more UK staff redundant, although no final decision has been made. A conference call this morning informed all UK staff at IBM's Global Services Delivery unit that there would likely be redundancies, depending on the results of the consultation. We were sent the following statement: "IBM UK is embarking on a process of consultation. It would be inappropriate to discuss the matter further during this consultation period." An IBM insider told us: "The formal consultation period begins 23 February and will last 90 days. It has come out of the blue and is a total shock. And from a work perspective - we already struggle to get work done with the people we have."
• LinkedIn discussion: You have an Hour One on One with Sam Palmisano. What Would You Tell Him? Selected posts follow:
  • IBM has always been considered as the maker of Quality products and Services. For last few years, I have seen a shift in these two strong points. Responsiveness of sales people has gone down considerably and worst of all the partners you have chosen, sometimes I feel more loyal to IBM's competitor. You asked them some typical questions and they immediately switch to other vendor product with strong reasoning. Its high time IBM should look into its strategy on how to win the share in SME market.
  • Proud IBMer? You would be thinking a little diff. if you had been awake when IBM laid off 10k people in march and april 2009. The co. is run to make millions for it's exec's. Yup, "amazing company"..
  • When in the course of human events we find ourselves dependent upon the self-indulgent house of cards we have always built to allow us time to "THINK" (as we feel it becoming increasingly unsteady today), we know the new order of things must be near and in fact already is emerging. Many want to know what it is. Isn't that what we ex IBMers are doing here?
  • This is the thread that doesn't end. Kind of cool, it almost makes me want to pull the whole thing and categorize the responses, do a summation. Obviously, there are two sides to the story here.

    Yes, @Arie, I was a "proud IBMer" who was among the first fruits of the layoffs last year. I was angry, and then I was energized, then I was worried, then I was depressed. I mean, how long can good people be out of work, right? Well, paying work? Coming up on a year, so, yea, that sucked, and I know Sam, et al, didn't cut their bonuses for me.

    On the other hand, we were doing good work, and my stock was profiting, and that is another audience you play to - the stockholders and the Street. So, they did good. No one said the had to BE good, and I have been employed too long to think that any big company believes their own BS that "our people make the difference". That's just advertising.

    And yet, the very practices that IBM developed - remote work, collaborative tools, social media, virtual teaming, ad hoc partnerships - this could well displace the model of an international conglomerate. That should scare the pants off of the Big Corporations.

    Look, for many years they made more and more profit with their little "total quality, empowered employee" models. The problem is that they showed their hand - they don't REALLY care for us, beyond what we can give them, beyond the balance of the spreadsheet. Business remains feudal, with the rich at the top, protected, and the serfs outside the wall, loyally ding for the company.

    But, loyalty is earned, and what I learned is to first be loyal to myself. It is like when you are in the airplane, ignoring the flight attendant - she says, "first, put on your own mask, THEN help others". You have to take care of yourself first.

    There is no reason to be anything but situationally loyal to a company that doesn't care about me. There is every reason to take everything you can get and be ready to move when it is right for you.

  • I must say that I believe IBM is probably the most successful IT company and I can write a full article on this. However, IBM management often plays 'dirty' tactics to improve the figures in the financial markets and in front of the shareholders. Among these 'dirty' tactics are the "layoffs" as a way to cut expenses when the company cannot sustain the revenues ... These waves of "layoffs" happen whenever the financial performance goes down every decade or so.
  • Don, excellent thoughts. Your points emphasize that the corporate world has created a mercenary workforce where every staff member focuses on his own survival, is out for him/herself and who has no loyalty to his/her employers. Don't you think it would be a much more successful company if the average person did not have to worry about his own job security, and thus could spend time and energy on team efforts, mentoring and teaching others and has a sense of loyalty ? It seems the average team at IBM these days is comprised of a group of strutting roosters who posture themselves like politicians in an effort to remain low on the "next to be laid off" list. Tom, the "new order" is "every man for himself -----> thus, chaos. Mohammed, IBM's success was in the past. The days of industry leadership are over.
  • As Watson Sr. Said, "We have an obligation to the stock holder to deliver a return on their investment." He didn't really say anything about the employee being happy, just wanted to be fair. Well, for those of us who had been with IBM for a long long time, we have had many opportunities and we had a great work ethic and did commit ourselves to the job and the company. We were the job. That has all changed as everyone has stated. The focus is different and "this isn't your father's Oldsmobile." Say what you will, my Dad always said, "There is nothing as cold hearted as big business." I forgot that.

    I was determined to do the right things for IBM and my colleagues. Unfortunately the changing of the guard and with the acquisition of "outsiders" who were not true blue changed the culture of IBM and more specifically my work environment. Others gave up their individuality and pride/ethics/values, what ever you wish to call it and did the proper selling of their souls. Truth of the matter is they are still there, I am not. But, I left with my integrity and IBM taught me another valuable lesson, as it always does and always will. I want IBM to be successful, but I do wish it would get back to some of its basic values.

  • Peter, You made an interesting point in your post in that shareholder investment return is the top key measurement that IBM CEOs should follow, according to Watson's statement. That makes sense for me.

    I was interested in researching this one topic since I had heard many times that the long term shareholder value has not been exactly faithful to Watson's Sr.'s hopes. Shareholder value is key to me because as an insider of a small privately held corporation and as an investor with IRAs and other investments, this is ultimately tied to my long term prospects. I decided to research what I thought was just the verification of a hypothesis that I thought was just a fact: IBM stock is and has always been a great long term equity investment.

    To analyze this hypothesis, I went to Yahoo Finance, looked up the IBM quote, requested a stock chart of the equity and extended it to the maximum time frame (1962 - present). I then compared to Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). Just select "compare", then add HPQ and then request Yahoo finance to draw the chart of both stock on the same scale. The resulting chart was an eye popper! I suggest all of you do the same and see the chart for your yourselves.

    I'd be more disappointed as an investor than as an employee.

    The comparison of course doesn't include dividends, which both stocks provide, so I guess we'd have to see what the difference would be after re-investing the dividends from 1962 to present but I imagine it can't even put a dent on the difference quoted on the chart after 58 years. True, there have been periods of time where the stock may be a hot performer relative to other shares and the market, but over the long haul, this isn't a shareholder track record to brag about, according to the Yahoo finance graph.

    The Yahoo graph implies that IBM equity value seems to have lost its leadership in the 70's and never regained it against HPQ. Building a false perception is sometimes more important than the truth? Any comments?

  • Richard, you make a great observation. I had thought during my 11 year IBM career that IBM stock was a solid performer. I was wrong. By the way, IBM did not begin paying a dividend until the 1990's, and at first it was a very small amount. Dividend reinvestment would improve the performance since 1966 marginally.

    I did as you said, but I went you one better. I added MSFT, CSCO, INTC, AAPL and EMC (large cap technology companies). All of the added ones went public in the 1980's. The chart is startling. IBM has been a laggard for decades. The chart: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=my&s=IBM&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=hpq%2Cmsft%2Cintc+emc+csco+aapl

    So now I have a few new questions for Sam: How do explain the lack of success of IBM stock price versus it's peers, especially when IBM was considered the technology industry leader for many of those years ? Why is IBM not able to transfer its leadership in Research (leader in patents) into new products that can generate revenue growth ? How are you able to retain our position when you have not been successful in your most important responsibility: maximizing shareholder returns?

  • I was hired in the last year before IBM stopped the no-layoff policy. I worked with people who would do anything for the company and I watched them get chopped. They recruited the best. By the time I left the college recruiting was average and nobody would be there past 5. I would ask Sam if it was worth it. He was there awhile
• TrueSlant: Recession Files: We are all Harvey Lesser. (Editor's note: Mr. Lesser is a former employee at IBM Boulder.) By Matthew Newton. Excerpts: Scenes from the recession are rarely heartening. If anything, looking at photographs of Americans being removed from foreclosed homes, having cars repossessed, or lined up at the unemployment office, feels predatory or even obscene. But at their best, these photographs should remind us that times are still incredibly tough, regardless of what out-of-touch ‘experts’ like Larry Summers have to say. Having experienced job loss firsthand this past summer (Read: Fear & Self-Loathing in America’s Rust Belt, Part I and Part II), I am well aware of what day-to-day survival entails. For me, the ability to quickly adapt to my new reality and hustle day and night to pay bills and put food on the table, allowed me to weather a tough but life-changing six months of unemployment. That, and of course, luck. After sending out countless resumes, I eventually found work. Many are not so fortunate. One such case is the story of Harvey Lesser, an unemployed software developer with chronic health problems who was recently evicted from his apartment in Boulder, Colorado (pictured below).

  Michael Shaw, over at Bag News Notes, provides a sobering analysis of Getty Images photographer John Moore’s shots of Harvey Lesser being evicted. He begins by citing a Frank Rich column in the New York Times that was inspired by the film “Up in the Air”:

  "What gives our Great Recession its particular darkness … is the disconnect between the corporate culture that is dictating the firing and the rest of us. In the shorthand of the day, it’s the dichotomy between Wall Street and Main Street, though that oversimplifies the divide. This disconnect isn’t just about the huge gap in income between the financial sector and the rest of America. Nor is it just about the inequities of a government bailout that rescued the irresponsible bankers who helped crash the economy while shortchanging the innocent victims of their reckless gambles. What “Up in the Air” captures is less didactic. It makes palpable the cultural and even physical chasm that opened up between the two Americas for years before the financial collapse."

  The private-equity deal makers who bought and sold once-solid companies like trading cards, saddling them with debt, never saw the workers whose jobs were shredded by their cunning games of financial looting. The geniuses in Washington and on Wall Street who invented junk mortgages and then bundled and sold them as securities didn’t live in the same neighborhoods as the mortgagees, small investors and retirees left holding the bag once the housing bubble burst.

  Those at the top are separated from the consequences of their actions.

• Chicago Post-Tribune: Daniels should recoup funds, not make cuts. By Shaw Friedman. Excerpts: As state revenue estimates continue hitting the skids, we keep hearing from the governor how he's going to make budget cuts and demand sacrifices. Yet the cuts so far are inflicting pain on those least able to afford it. Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville, was right two weeks ago to challenge cuts that make no sense or simply inflict damage on the aged, the young, the infirm and the disabled. ...

  How about this governor showing some real guts and going after the rich and powerful corporations who are skating on their tax obligations to Indiana? How about a "profile in courage" there for a change? It seems Gov. Mitch Daniels is more than willing to pick on local firefighters and teachers first, rather than asking the nation's biggest, most profitable corporations to pay their fair share. It's interesting that as recently as 1990, corporate income taxes accounted for 12 percent of our state budget; now they account for just 6 percent. ...

  Secondly, let's recoup monies that are owed when big corporations don't perform. Exhibit A is the governor's failed experiment with privatizing welfare benefits and eligibility. Somehow, the state already has spent $340 million on this 10-year, $1.3 billion contract, and it was a complete flop. Documents were lost, Medicaid and food stamps weren't timely processed, and taxpayers didn't save one thin dime. Rather than give IBM a parting gift of $4.4 million as a going-away prize, how about the governor commission a detailed audit, demand transparency and recoup every penny that any vendor or contractor owes the state of Indiana? Somehow the governor found $180 million to give IBM as a contract add-on in August, when the contract was obviously failing. He needs to recover any money owed Hoosier taxpayers under this debacle.

• BusinessWeek, courtesy of Yahoo! Finance: 10 Management Practices to Axe. By Liz Ryan. Excerpts: Every few years, a management book or philosophy emerges to change our thinking about the best ways to lead employees. From The One Minute Manager to Who Moved My Cheese?, new and revived leadership concepts have shaped the way we organize, evaluate, inspire, and reward team members. With so many competing management theories in the mix, some ill-conceived practices were bound to take hold—and indeed, many have. Here's our list of the 10 most brainless and injurious:

  1. Forced Ranking. The idea behind forced ranking is that when you evaluate your employees against one another, you'll see who's most critical on the team and who's most expendable. This theory rests on the notion that we can exhort our reports to work together for the sake of the team 364 days a year and then, when it really counts, pit them against one another in a zero-sum competitive exercise. That's a decent strategy for TV shows such as Survivor but disastrous for organizations that intend to stay in business for the long term. What to do instead: Evaluate employees against written goals and move quickly to remove poor performers all the time (not just once a year). ...

  3. Overdone Policy Manuals. You know who's making money for your employer right now? Workers who are selling, building, or inventing stuff. You know who's spending the business's money right now? Other employees (most easily found in HR, IT, and Finance) who've been commanded to write, administer, and enforce the 10,000 policies that make up your company's employee handbook. Overblown policy efforts squelch creativity, bake fear into your culture, and make busywork for countless office admins, on top of wasting paper, time, and brain cells. What to do instead? Nuke one unnecessary or outdated policy every week and require the CEO's signature to add any new ones. ...

  7. Jack-Booted Layoffs. It's no shame to have to reduce your workforce, but why treat departing employees like convicted felons? Anyone who tells you that an RIF requires perp-walk guided exits is someone to add to the next layoff list himself. One-on-one pink-slip discussions and dignified, non-immediate departures are the new norm for ethical organizations. If you have to march your loyal, redundant co-workers out the door, it says lots about the kind of workplace you've built. What to do instead: Deal with performance problems independently of staff reductions. Treat those employees you're forced to let go like the mature professionals they are.

  9. Mandatory Performance-Review Bell Curves. The evil twin to forced ranking systems is the annual review protocol that commands managers to assign their employees in equal numbers into groups of Poor, Fair, Good, Above Average, and Excellent employees. If a CEO has so little faith in his or her managers that she'd plan for, much less settle for, a workforce where 50% of the people range from so-so to dismal, that CEO requires too little from the management team. Forcing performance-review (and salary-increase) distributions into a bell curve exalts and institutionalizes mediocrity. What to do instead: Set high standards for employee reviews and raise them every year. Counsel or remove managers who can't move past Easy Grader status, and trust the rest of your managers to review their employees fairly. If you can't trust your leadership team members to assess their employees, how can you trust them to manage at all?

• Yahoo! IBM Retiree Information Exchange: "Re: Nostalgia, Rankings, and IBM vs. AIG" by "Bart Bartholomew" . Full excerpt: Like Dave, I too spent about half my 39-years at IBM in staff jobs; half in management (1st, 2nd, and 3rd level). I never could get myself to understand that we were always strongly encouraged to only hire the best and the brightest, to push people to be star performers, and yet be demanded or forced to have an appraisal/evaluation spread or skew shaped like a bell curve.
• Newsweek: Lay Off the Layoffs. Our overreliance on downsizing is killing workers, the economy—and even the bottom line. By Jeffrey Pfeffer. Excerpts: On Sept. 12, 2001, there were no commercial flights in the United States. It was uncertain when airlines would be permitted to start flying again—or how many customers would be on them. Airlines faced not only the tragedy of 9/11 but the fact that economy was entering a recession. So almost immediately, all the U.S. airlines, save one, did what so many U.S. corporations are particularly skilled at doing: they began announcing tens of thousands of layoffs. Today the one airline that didn't cut staff, Southwest, still has never had an involuntary layoff in its almost 40-year history. It's now the largest domestic U.S. airline and has a market capitalization bigger than all its domestic competitors combined. As its former head of human resources once told me: "If people are your most important assets, why would you get rid of them?" ...

  For many managers, these actions feel unavoidable. But even if downsizing, right-sizing, or restructuring (choose your euphemism) is an accepted weapon in the modern management arsenal, it's often a big mistake. In fact, there is a growing body of academic research suggesting that firms incur big costs when they cut workers. Some of these costs are obvious, such as the direct costs of severance and outplacement, and some are intuitive, such as the toll on morale and productivity as anxiety ("Will I be next?") infects remaining workers.

  But some of the drawbacks are surprising. Much of the conventional wisdom about downsizing—like the fact that it automatically drives a company's stock price higher, or increases profitability—turns out to be wrong. There's substantial research into the physical and health effects of downsizing on employees—research that reinforces the seemingly hyperbolic notion that layoffs are literally killing people. There is also empirical evidence showing that labor-market flexibility isn't necessarily so good for countries, either. A recent study of 20 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development economies over a 20-year period by two Dutch economists found that labor-productivity growth was higher in economies having more highly regulated industrial-relations systems—meaning they had more formal prohibitions against the letting go of workers. ...

  Layoffs don't even reliably cut costs. That's because when a layoff is announced, several things happen. First, people head for the door—and it is often the best people (who haven't been laid off) who are the most capable of finding alternative work. Second, companies often lose people they didn't want to lose. I had a friend who worked in senior management for a large insurance company. When the company decided to downsize in the face of growing competition in financial services, he took the package—only to be told by the CEO that the company really didn't want to lose him. So, he was "rehired" even as he retained his severance. A few years later, the same thing happened again. One survey by the American Management Association (AMA) revealed that about one third of the companies that had laid people off subsequently rehired some of them as contractors because they still needed their skills.

  Managers also underestimate the extent to which layoffs reduce morale and increase fear in the workplace. The AMA survey found that 88 percent of the companies that had downsized said that morale had declined. That carries costs, now and in the future. When the current recession ends, the first thing lots of employees are going to do is to look for another job. In the face of management actions that signal that companies don't value employees, virtually every human-resource consulting firm reports high levels of employee disengagement and distrust of management. The Gallup organization finds that active disengagement—which Gallup defines as working to sabotage the performance of your employer—ranges from 16 percent to 19 percent. Employees who are unhappy and stressed out are more likely to steal from their employers—an especially large problem for retailers, where employee theft typically exceeds shoplifting losses.

• Poughkeepsie Journal letter to the editor: IBM shows why regulation needed. Full excerpt: Although there are positive signs our economy is emerging from a deep recession caused by the greed of bankers and speculators, there has not been a rebound in employment. Should we blame the president? Blame the Congress? Blame taxes? No, blame large corporations like IBM.

  Consider the absurdity of a recent front-page Poughkeepsie Journal story on IBM reporting record earnings and profits and yet anticipating job cuts ("IBM sets profit record but hints at job cuts," Jan. 20). What gives? One would expect dismal earnings would result in layoffs, but record profits?

  It speaks to what is wrong with capitalism as practiced in 21st century America. Profits are made at the expense of employees and their security. Could IBM be a little less profitable without letting go staff? Could the executives whose bonuses depend on the firing of others to maximize their bottom line give up their greedy and ill-gotten gains for the benefit of the workers whose manual and intellectual contributions allow them to make a profit in the first place? Why ask that question when executives can lay off workers and then magnanimously rehire them on a contract basis for less money with no benefits. Gone are the days of relative corporate ethics and responsibilities vis a vis their employees.

  IBM is not the focus here, only the local example of how capitalism has gone wrong and why there is an unfortunate necessity for government intervention and regulation of the financial institutions and the large corporations that make record profits by putting Americans out of work.

• JobVent: Working at IBM — Reviews by Employees. Selected reviews follow:
  • From London — 02/08/2010. The Watson-era IBM I joined 25 years ago is no more. In its place has been created a soul-less, filleted shell of a company which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. It's a miserable place to work for anyone aged about 50 or over. Anyone considering working for IBM would be well advised to do it for a few years to get your CV stamped, then move on. It's a depressing, morale-sapping behemoth in which there is nothing to look forward to apart from the exit door. It really is grim working for IBM in the UK now. As a company to work for it has become appalling, and that's a tragedy.
  • From Cincinnati OH — 02/11/2010. IBM in a downturn will sacrifice its children, employees, SMEs and people assets. It is mercilessly competitive and if you are acquired you will soon be doing the Big Blue dance. That being said, it is incredibly smart place- opportunities abound. The culture creates the most patents of any US corporation. You will have the resources to do your job on a big scale. In various Industries not the best innovator, but as a whole you will learn and profit from working here. Very high outsourcer - like Microsoft, i.e. jobs transfer overseas.
  • From Fishkill, NY — 02/12/2010. The word is IBM Managers are meeting today to talk about 1st QTR RA's, the word is to have the layoffs completed by 3/31/10. IBM's executive greed has all about hurt the accounts I work on, the experience is no longer there, if the problems are not in a process the other support teams do not know how to take care of it, communication is a large problem causing customers to escalate problems and in a lot of recent cases not renew their contracts. If you are ever considering using IBM for services I wish you luck, you will need it. If you are considering working for IBM plan on a short career they will use you and push you out the door to save a buck. If you are a community offering tax breaks I would think twice as they destroy communities everywhere they go.