Thread regarding IBM layoffs

RT sales reorganizations have not panned out. Like football, time to fire the general manager. He has had enough chances.

IBM over-hired because RT thought he could take the world by storm... What was his goal? 100'000 new logos? How many logos does IBM have today?

Sales plans are full year this year. So if you aren’t even close to your target in September what is the chance of making your number by year end?

Yeah, these PIPs seem to be designed so people will fail and IBM can save on severance.

There are a lot of deals that close end of year. Hopefully before placing a person on a PIP, they consider that

Especially when they are measuring against a full year but undercutting arguably the two months that most deals get done. Maybe Rob and Cameron should go back into the field without their titles and if they are so all knowing they can show us how it’s done or be cut in 10 mos.

PIPs are happening in SW development in order to weed out the bottom of the stack rank and replace with “better” talent. The goal is to achieve a World Class SW Organization. We’re being told that this is the same policy at all major tech companies.

2021 to 2022 was ridiculous. They hired an excessive number of people in Sales (technical and non-technical) and have gone through plenty of org shifts since then to try to solve the problem of utilizing people correctly. The only answer to that is you downsize. Plenty of bench sitters and under performers for products that do not need that much sales coverage across regions/industries.

Yeah, it seemed like they really over hired in the beginning of 2022. They went overboard.

Be fair??? It absolutely 100% was all her fault. She made the decisions you numbnut Everyone else just said yes Wake the f up

Sales is a lot tougher in the past 10 years. Your products and services have to be much more differentiated than 10 years ago. Yes PIPs will happen and RAs as well. If they are occurring more often than not, it is a health check sign that your business is struggling.

I am in ATO and we have PIPs. It's the easies way for them to get rid of people.

Let’s be fair - it wasn’t the fault of the former CEO, rather it was the fault of the 15 layers of management each with only 5 direct reports wasting time on daily stand ups and retrospectives that cost IBM. Instead of innovating and chasing new business, everyone was focused on talking about work rather than the execution of the work. If I hear the word agile or culture or design thinking I’m going to lose my mind.

She took IBM from $107B in Revenue in 2011 to $74B in 2020. This at a time of extraordinary growth in the tech sector.

She was the worst CEO in the history of big tech and probably in the top 10 in modern history. She should be wearing an orange jumpsuit, but instead is writing books about her "achievements". Her next career should be a magician. She disappeared more value than the GDP of half of the countries in NATO. Lately there are talks of a political career. I hope she does. Then we'll see the real skeletons, and maybe that jumpsuit.

lol should not Rometty of been on a pip instead of 500 million in the bank???? took ibm from stock price 200+ to 140ish. Spent over 60 billion on suspect "investments" red hat softlayer etc etc

Q2 was a big RA quarter. Now they want to RA on the cheap with a PIP instead. HR and Legal must be working 25 hours a day 8 days a week on this stuff to keep up. Listen, whoever is left can you please don’t forget to turn out the lights. The execs need every dime saved to fill their pockets before the ship sinks.

Although every company would like a sales rep to exceed 100% very year, reality is different. Not making 100% in a year comes down to many factors, often beyond the reps control. However, consistent under achievement should raise a red flag. If the PIPs are being issued in a blanket fashion, that is a problem. If PIPs are being issued to consistent under-achievers, I have no problem with that. I am a sales rep and have had years when the products I sell have been cr-p, when the economy has been weak, and my customer base has little budget. But overall I have been consistent. I have seen peers of mine never make their number, and often times they realize they are on borrowed time and plan accordingly. I've also seen some peers protected from action because they have a special relationship with management. PIPs have a purpose but shouldn't be abused/misused.

Flush the old and bring in a new set of people from sales school. 4th quarter will be a mess.

Arvind has said IBM needs to be more efficient. So he probably told Rob Thomas to make it happen on the sales side and PIPs are is way to make it happen. You do lose really good people because while some are fortunate to have good revenue numbers because they have some good customers, other sales reps and tech sales sellers are not as fortunate like in the National Market where customers do not have a very good relationship with IBM. That does not mean those people are not any good.

Can confirm PIPs happening in any org. Managers under pressure to use this tool and meet people exit numbers by end of year. All of this legally borderline.

It would have been much quicker and a lot more honest to simply fire the undesirable employees (all of them), but doing so would expose IBM to obvious legal and operational difficulties. So the executives play this game of demanding unrealistic and unachievable performance targets. If a salesperson isn't making quota right now, are they really going to hit 70% by November? Perhaps...but I kinda doubt it.

PIPs have been implemented across the board, all ORGs, except Execs evidently. It is the new way to get rid of people quickly and cheaply so that the Execs make the next quarter.

Obviously, over time, this is destroying the company.

This seems to be a quarterly thing. All have unattainable quotas. It’s IBM treating the smart folks like trash.
Maybe we should have a quarterly PIP of execs like Rob and Cameron.