Claim That IBM Marked 15% of its Workforce for Potential Layoffs
Hours ago:
4 hours ago: "I was a manager [at IBM]. They left performance evaluations up to us, let us determine distributions of bonuses and raises, etc. now they mandated 15% low performers and capped high performers. They had us push those metrics up to upper management (VP level) who used it for layoffs. We also had to make a big ranking chart for who was being cut. They were cutting people that had little to no "growth opportunity" and were regularly receiving raises and bonuses. They also denied bonuses to anyone low performer while previously you could distribute bonuses even to low performers. They neutered managers and hijacked a lot of that autonomy that made being an IBM manager tolerable. It was decent for a bit but it's outright toxic. I am at another company now and it's amazing the difference not feeling like your company is gaslighting you constantly."
Yesterday we said "IBM [had been] Stacked and Ranked Badly" because morale was destroyed for marking "low performers" (typically a misnomer, a totally inadequate label and pretext/excuse for RAs). According to the new comment above, it goes further than this because not only they "had us push those metrics up to upper management (VP level) who used it for layoffs." To quote: "They neutered managers and hijacked a lot of that autonomy that made being an IBM manager tolerable."
No wonder we keep hearing from Red Hat people who say they hate IBM. This cultural thing isn't a Red Hat thing. Maybe this is McKinsey/Microsoft in charge.
It says "they mandated 15% low performers" as if it's about quotas, not real performance, and performance was - or still is - likely assessed by people who don't even understand the tasks, rewarding brown-nosers, boasters, and "successful" fakers. █