To me, this whole bench program is a deception to reduce staff, by consolidating work onto remaining employees, that will result in more overworked personnel getting burned out. The bottom line is to save on money to increase share holders dividends, by throwing away any sense of corporate stability. In the long run, this will impact customers that depend on Kyndryl for stable IT services. Getting rid of experienced folks, leaving less experienced personel is bad for corporate morale, when done in a sneaky stealthy way.
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I share the same opinion as @Iidv+1lbscc0j. Also, I don't believe those at the top have thought about the long-term consequences of all this. Either they haven't thought about it or they just simply don't care.
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'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...'
Don't lie about the fact that you're different, don't be so opaque.
It does seem that Kyndryl = IBM GTS = the same toxic practices. Once stuff is on the net it's out there. People can look it up and I agree that it's super helpful to people making decisions. A huge reputational and communications containment fail from that KD team.
Actual leadership and being the steward of change means fighting against a nature that tends to more long term poor reputational outcomes. I get that the inertia of large organizations and 'well, we've always done it this way' is hard to overcome but they just need to do better.
So many corporations claim they want to be 'the employer of choice.' Show us the evidence that's true otherwise it's all more self serving legal boilerplate and propaganda for those who aren't paying attention to what goes on.
'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...'
It's human nature to want to keep your options open until the very last minute, and this applies to corporate environments as well as individuals. Kyndryl's management practices are inherited from IBM (for better or worse), and this includes the entire history of CYA that has been going on for over 40 years. IBM has been doing mass firings (RAs, or whatever you want to call it) since at least the early 1990s. It's unrealistic to expect Kyndryl management to do anything differently than they are now, given the situation.
The best thing that can be done is to do what websites like this one does...alert potential employees to the situation, so that they can enter with open eyes and not be blindsided. Current employees already know the score, and hopefully have had plenty of chances to take care of their own lives before anything happens.
I get the business requirements. That's not at issue for most. It's deceptive and poor practices in treatment of employees in this process. The bench thing is wholly secretive with people being told nothing. I know my environment is down to a last man standing or two just like the post from the second line on Reddit. Excuse the company all you want but they need to do better, period.
This is KYNDRYL not IBM - why you have posted this message about IBM here?!
Hi, I'm a former IT architect from the Sam P era, looking back many years since my exit from IBM...to say that the people at the top haven't thought about the consequences or don't care is a very nasty statement to make, although it is certainly understandable. The GTS (strategic outsourcing) business model has a lot of issues, and savvy customers are dealing with these issues by pulling their business back inside or handing off selected jobs to other companies. This is not unique to IBM (Kyndryl)...it happens to a lot of other vendors as well.
I was involved both in service delivery as well as helping to write customer deals. When a deal is written, assumptions are made about how many people and what kind of people will be needed to perform the different parts of the delivered service. Sometimes we (IBM) got it right. A lot of the time, we got it wrong. This is no different than what happens with other vendors.
The bottom line is that if a contract is not bringing in sufficient funds to perform the agreed-upon service, then IBM (Kyndryl) has to either fish or cut bait. That means that either the service is performed at IBM (Kyndryl)'s expense no matter what (to keep the customer happy), or the services are cut from the deal and people get canned. These sorts of decisions are made between the DPE and other executives (sometimes several levels of them) and the customer. Sometimes the deal will be kept, and sometimes it won't. But know this...in the end, somebody ALWAYS pays.
When IBM (ISSC) first started in the outsourcing business, there was a lot of money available to be sloppy. Outsourcing was a new thing, and both IBM and the customers were willing to make deals in order to keep things going "no matter what". After a few years, however, both IBM and the customers got a lot more savvy. As they became more savvy, their willingness to keep fishing in times of trouble became much thinner. If a deal isn't working, then it is often in the best interests of both IBM (Kyndryl) and the customer to exit quickly and not sc--w around. Save whatever parts of the deal can be saved, and let the rest go. Reassign the staff if at all possible, or get rid of them.
When is a deal not working, you might ask? When the Excel spreadsheets say a project is losing money and the customer is complaining...simple as that.