IBM: Spying on Staff Like Never Before and Implementing Silent Layoffs This Month, Say Insiders
This was about an hour ago and it is plausible. Because what we heard from whistleblowers seems to corroborate:
Some whistleblowers tell us that big things are happening in Big Blue this month, which proves dreadful to people who are meant to concentrate on getting work done rather than feel nervous about being PIP'ed or RA'ed (skipping a PIP). Fear can be paralysing and IBM is doing anything it can to inspire fear (such as people fearing losing their home or having their career terminated).
As someone has just put it, "yes can confirm they check wifi connection as well. When did IBM become an authoritarian prison? Checking badges and wifi feels like over ki-l for big blue" (the culture of distrust spread to the EPO as well, whereupon illegal surveillance and harm was done even to guests of the Office).
Another new comment regarding stack(ed) ranking/s suggests that the management is, indeed, marking lots of people for dismissal. The "quotas were set directly by the board of directors":
IBM has been stack ranked every year since the mid-90s. For 3 or 4 of those years, corporate HR declined to impose quotas or distributional guidance but the individual Sr. VPs imposed them on their own in those years. One year, HR challenged a Sr. VP for this and lost resoundingly. I was in management when this started and only recently retired from management, so I had a front row seat.What is different this year is that the IBM CEO was told that he had no influence over the quotas. The quotas were set directly by the board of directors and IBM’s top executives were warned not to question any aspect of the new policy.
Well, IBM's CEO is inside this "board of directors" and IBM seems eager to reduce expenses by reducing the scale of "Expensive" or "Experienced" (typically the same thing; a strong correlation prevails) staff. █