Stack(ed) Rankings and Ongoing Layoffs at Red Hat and IBM (Failure to Keep Staff Acquired by IBM)
"Stack(ed) rankings" are considered toxic for several reasons, including the simple fact that they encourage eat-eat-dog attitude inside the workplace. We wrote about this last week after someone had brought them up. 4 hours ago someone mentioned these again in relation to IBM and said: "I heard what makes the new evaluation system different is 15 percent have to be marked low performer while in the past it was 10 percent and that it has always been stacked. Is that true? It seems like there are many more steps for managers this time. The bonus thing isn’t a big deal when the bonus was often nothing to begin with..."
The first comment said, "can Alvind, Krabanaugh and the Pipmunks be labelled as low performers (they are low to mediocre performers) ? That will solve a lot of problems for the stack ranking."
Somebody then replied: "Stacked rankings is more that just allocating x% as low performers. We did have real stacked rankings for years and finally eliminated the worst because it is so toxic. But it seems to be coming back. In the bad old days, we had something that I think was called Team Based Decision Making (TBDM.) These were just horrible where at least at the third line level, every single person had to be compared to every other person. So you had a fully ordered list from highest performer to lowest. Not only was it a large waste of resources, it was also completely depressing."
"When stacked rankings (especially when a fully ordered list is required) I'm not sure how you can really build team chemistry. We can all go to team lunches etc., but basically we are all at war with everyone else. If you do well, I do badly."
"Why did they bring this style back?" the latest comment asked. It's more of a recent thing, like Red Hat staff becoming "IBM" in 2026 and also the RTO (for all). This happened 2 hours ago:
After more than 25 years. There's also this, after 15 years and getting acquired by IBM:
Another good acquisition by IBM's AK? No.
The founders are leaving.
And after buying Red Hat some more veterans leave. This was hours ago:
That's just one of many. Not everyone has a Microsoft LinkedIn account and writes about leaving.
IBM is mismanaged and its sole aim is to game the stock market (by faking a lot of things). █