With everything that is happening in this company, one of the problems that I would be worried about if I were in leadership is that there are still a large number of people leaving. What are they thinking, how will they attract such talents again? And what is the future of IBM without people who have energy and desire to grow their skills and who could actually add value to this company?
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Look how many Distinguished Engineers are quitting though! This says a LOT.
They WANT attrition and specifically in high cost countries or ones with a lot of worker protections. The plan is to replace them with low cost ‘resources’ in India, Costa Rica, Brazil, etc… They need to show cost reductions to get the stock price up so AK and his ‘leadership team’ can get their bonuses and payouts. This has nothing to do with IBM as a company - as previous poster said this is just them ‘ pillaging and pilfering as much as they can for themselves, before the whole house of cards collapses’.
In IBM Sw, Attrition is only a concern for the first line, Who are the ones that need to figure out how to keep the lights on, after some key employee leaves (that very often means that the load is now transferred to the rest of the team).?For the second line and above, attritions are simply savings. I have seen ppl with excellent and scarce skills leave without any backfill (for years). Attritions have left many components orphan, without any display of concern by anyone different than the FLM that owns it (but often does not have the skills to support it)
Attrition within the big 4 consultant houses runs at approx 20%. IBM is no different, and has even admitted that they attrit “tens of thousands” per year. Ever wonder why AK said no RA’s last year? It’s because of IBM’s high consulting attrition rate and their follow up with PIP’s. NOTE the recent RA was concentrated within SW and Infrastructure as their attrition rate is an order of magnitude below consulting. That doesn’t mean consulting didn’t have some RA’s, but they were focused on business that IBM was exiting or had lost
@1bmm+1mbEkm86, even if a division is profitable, IBM will look to cut. This is what got them to this point in the first place.
To say that executives look at staplers, laptops and employees the same way is well-intentioned but imprecise. Staplers are considered a one-time expense, laptops are amortized (paid off, in a sense) over 3-5 years, and rank and file employees are considered an ongoing cost.
IBM management is laser-focused on cost, but problematic with the original poster's issue...seeing value in people. This is nothing new...they've been that way for decades.
Unless a division is really profitable, the people in that division will be viewed as just another ongoing cost that needs to be cut. Sometimes that's the right thing to do, but sometimes it's better to continue spending or even increase spending, as an investment for the future. It helps to have spare cash and skilled, visionary (there's that word again) management to accomplish this feat, which I'm guessing is something that's in short supply at the moment.
It’s sad to say, executives look at the rank and file the same way they look at staplers and laptops. Just a an asset.
Attrition is the goal. It’s much cheaper if people leave without having to pay severance, that being said, the wrong people are the ones that leave.
As has been said before in this forum, the Execs don't care ... they're just pillaging and pilfering as much as they can for themselves, before the whole house of cards collapses.
"The End is nigh!"