In IBM, PIPs and RAs (Layoffs) Have Become Almost the Same Thing, Workers 'Expire' With Age (Seniority, Experience) and Empathy is Punishable by Termination
There's a new comment, which sounds like it comes from a relatively high-profile insider, and it claims that 95% of people put on a PIP are in effect terminated. How credible is this? This is the comment: "IBM is a large place, so it’s hard to know the global truth, but I highly doubt your PIP survival statistic. I’m on the tech side of the house. In my division, the PIP survival rate is under 5%. Over the years, I’ve placed several employees on PIPs. None of them survived. Usually a LOB executive failed them. If the executive began to have doubts, then HR stepped in. PIP is a pre-determined destiny — if you do survive, then they’ll find another way to force you out."
There are then two newer comments which are quite credibly claiming it is an ethical breach to have empathy (we've seen this before, not only at IBM).
The first says: "IBM always finds a way. [For PIPs] Last year, one of my old managers got fired for "violating BCGs". She was a kind person who was only trying to help the laid off. The "violation" was for something that HR invented as a new guideline earlier that year and had been a standard practice for years. She was a Band 10 and HR was highly motivated to see her go despite her stellar ratings. Even more disgusting is that she got approval from her manager and even the VP to help this laid person off. But when HR swept in, no one stood by her and they destroyed her career like piranhas, down to the skeleton. Management wept crocodile tears as they refused to stand up for her."
The next comment says "that same HR turns a blind to blatant harassment claims or other really egregious violations. Even when there is indisputable evidence, all of a sudden their systems and protocols seem to stop working."
There are many long threads about how nobody holds managers accountable for 1) corruption; 2) low performance.
The executive team at IBM is "the cult" or the "club"; the rules don't apply, same as at the EPO. It's horrid and it destroys morale.
Being an executive is not a function of age either, as IBM "Hates Old People" (like we put it this morning), except the ones in the "club".
See these latest comments about ageism:
"As for best places to work in IBM," somebody wrote, "you’re kidding yourself if you think any place in this company is good. You may have a room in the upper decks of the Titanic, but the ship is still sinking."
There's also a discussion of false accounting at IBM, a company that now faces several investigations for securities fraud.
Will anyone ever be held accountable for it?
"In culture men do not take the blame," someone has remarked. "Usually it's a collective "We" take the blame. Like well "well I guess no one got the memo"."
"IBM culture has been stagnant for over twenty years," someone else said. Another commenter responded: "it WAS stagnant. Now it is dead."
IBM does seem like a dead company deep in debt. It fakes "growth" while it is silently shrinking. Dark days ahead for Red Hat. █