Honestly, the only thing I can think of is that it was much, much bigger than we think. If it was not that bad, why hide it? People already speculate about thousands or tens of thousands being shown the proverbial door, that's already out there. How much worse can it get than that???
8 replies (most recent on top)
Someone here wrote...."In order to compete with MSFT, Amazon, Google, and Alibaba – IBM needs to establish trust between employees and employer. "
I agree. In other words - oh well. Too late. Maybe they should have NOT told us all to take EARNED vacation time in 2Q for our own "rest and relaxation." That would have been a good start for ol' AK.
The veil remains thicker than ever.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-01/ibm-the-silent-job-cutter-stokes-worker-anxiety-speculation
In the US they let go 25,000,00 people. Someone in HR filtered that information.
Here's why they won't ever report the final number: @OP+15f9qKqi
The final numbers will not be known by IBM until after June 22 and the number of employees that accept the 'Alternative Offer to Relocate' to Columbia Missouri is determined.
In order to compete with MSFT, Amazon, Google, and Alibaba – IBM needs to establish trust between employees and employer.
Transparency, combined with collaborative definition and communication of the strategy will not only build trust (between employees, investors, and executives) but it will actually help to change the culture to become a truly agile (giving authority and autonomy to teams) company and is way different from the lip service with a top-down approach.
As an example look at how Airbnb communicated layoffs, respecting individuals, and having clear communication...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/khalilsmith/2020/05/06/what-airbnb-got-right-about-announcing-layoffs/#6463de403cda
https://hbr.org/2018/10/why-agile-goes-awry-and-how-to-fix-it
Because it disproportionately affected North America based employees and they are hiring 1 for 1 replacements in India. That’s a huge embarrassment when 40M Americans unemployed. During the next Arvind AMA and the next Jim AMA employees need to demand the numbers.
IBM will not release final numbers because they need to manage expectations and avoid unwanted action from employees. Typical behaviour in any organization.