Bonum Certa Men Certa

PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) as an Instrumental But Largely Hidden (From the Public) Extra Layer of IBM's Workforce Reductions

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Dec 07, 2024

IBM

Last week: IBM and Microsoft Fake Headcount in Exactly the Same Way (While Mass Layoffs Persist and Real Revenue Falls, Not Just Compared to Inflation Rates) | Microsoft Has Already Laid Off Tens of Thousands of Workers, "Headcount" is Misleading Spin From Microsoft-Funded Sites

A PIP (shorthand that's rather catchy, "Performance Improvement Plan") is notorious inside IBM because it's one of the many ways, aside from RTO, to compel staff to leave by sending a "signal" to them. Someone once said that "in my world putting someone on a PIP is step one of the firing process." There are many ways to put down workers, hoping they would leave or engineering their exit later on (sometimes without severance payments, either). Sirius Open Source did this to colleagues it had defrauded, in effect sending them threats signed by criminals who belong in prison for fraud (to ran away from the country to evade prosecution and arrest).

The morale at IBM is really bad. Yesterday we saw that people report further layoffs (even after the November cutoff date). Hours ago somebody said: "They stopped them in November ... for now. Checkpoint results are being done and then more people will go on PIPs in January. RA is not the only way IBM cuts people. It is a combination of RA, PIP and collocation. It is all designed to reduce costs because the revenues aren't growing enough to meet the free cash flow goal."

"How many people who were put on PIP actually deserved it?" asked another person today. "From where I’m standing, I’d say none at all."

"From the people i know in Software," a reply said, "close to 80 percent. Do you really walk around your slice of IBM and feel surrounded by high performance?"

With morale so bad and motivation levels so low inside IBM (same at Microsoft by the way), why would they invest extra time and effort in their job, their duties? They'd likely get dismissed based on their salary (rank/pay grade and location), not their performance.

Photo source/credit: Big clown service providers too often operating like bad old IBM

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