Thread regarding IBM layoffs

I was laid off in the last round of RA's this past April 2024. It was not only communications and marketing. From my understanding 40% of the CIO was sacked. When looking around and observing who was laid off it was clearly done by age and years of service. The rest were forced to take early retirement, with a 1 year bridge offering to help others reach retirement. This keeps the real numbers out of the news. Now for the contract that you need to sign to get your severance. It's set up as coercion. You cannot get your severance unless you agree not to collectively sue. You have to arbitrate. The agreement is not ethical and I am questioning the validity given the National Labor Law in the US does not allow coercion. I thought I worked for a company that was upstanding. Now I am questioning it.

I got my buy out and bailed out to get another job (NOT IBM) and did well.

I have to say that I think IBM did the right things to help the employees. When the stuff hit the fan, and IBM did help. And did for me.

If you find people in ArmonK or RESARCH that were there when IBM was dying, talk to them and take advice that might help.

PS let me now if IBM Resarch is hiring! (:->

Ex-IBM yorktown Researcher here

Very sad. It sounds like the same cr-p as I got.

Hang tight guys!!

I’m curious what the rate of those getting laid off after being put in the Business Driven Mobility group will be. Will most find jobs in IBM (maybe pushing to work in AI) or decide to leave on their own. Or will a lot be turned into what would have been known as a resource action?

Decisions on who to RA is made by Executives. First and Second Line Managers (non-executives) are rarely ever able to change the decisions because they are made based upon salary, location, etc. Salary though as one one of the criteria results in a higher number of older employees getting targeted basically resulting in implicit age discrimination.

After the whole Arvind debacle of saying no more RA, they decided to change the approach. First and Second Line Managers are being assigned a number of low performers they have to identify and put on PIPs. They are told by HR that the goal of the PIP is to help the employee succeed not exit them. Managers are pushed to create PIPs that are virtually impossible for the employee to pass. The Managers are told they will be able to backfill the person however after they do IBMs dirty work they are not allowed to backfill. RAs might happen in the future however for now they are trying to change the narrative because Arvind got a black eye. First Line Managers are expected to get rid of employees one at a time through PIP so that IBM can maintain it's supposed high performance culture and reduce cost.

Redeploy is coming in the next few days. Business Driven mobility is when they say you are a good performer, but reducing anyway. They selectively offer you a couple months to find a new job (which either doesn't exist in GOM or HR disqualifies you for bogus reasons) This turns into a layoff in 30-90 days, but can be spun as the employees fault for not finding (the non existent) new job.

2024 will be no different then any other year, keep an ear open when quarterly profits are going to be announced

The objectives of every PIP are unfair They are designed to make you give up and leave of your own choice so IBM is clear of any potential litigation

Have any of you ever experienced an unfair pip or objectives that did not make sense?

RAs are not processed as "individually" as you might think, although there is a lot of consideration of individual cases. I was in division 7 (GTS, now Kyndryl) when I got my RA, but the issues are largely similar from division to division. The RA procedures are described in detail in other threads, but here are some examples of why there are multiple managers, plus legal, plus HR at different levels:

1. The quarterly RA is kicked off at a division level...the GM or someone close to the GM decides that an RA is needed...they ain't making enough money, or they need more cash, blah blah blah. You've heard all the reasons.

2. Which parts of the division need to cut staff? These are decisions made by 3rd line and above, not by 1st and 2nd lines. Upper management is better qualified to make those calls.

3. Start preparing the cut lists, using various criteria. This part was largely automated, but it gave a starting point.

4. Review the cut lists and start horse trading between managers. You have to cut a certain amount off the budget, but every individual on the cut list represents a different impact. Some employees cost more, some less. Some have special talents (rare skills, copyrights or patents to their names). Some employees are critical to important projects. Some get saved, most do not.

5. HR and legal review the cut lists. I can't speak to other divisions, but GTS made a lot of contracts over the years that protected various jobs...some facility was built in some city with lots of tax benefits, as long as employees at that facility kept their jobs for a select period of time. Other employees have individual circumstances that protect them.

It's just a ton of stuff that's beyond the scope of your typical 1st or 2nd line manager.

Seems strange that two or three levels of management plus HR plus legal get involved in every RA. A half dozen managers/execs tied up in cutting each and every head count seems like a huge cost as far as time goes. I guess to account for that time cost they must really have to take this cost from the severance.

@ixfu many of us who come here plan to fight in court when the day comes. Would you be so kind as to share this info:

• which city?
• which legal firm?
• if you paid on contingency, what was the percentage, and was it all payable only once you won and received your own payment?

If you paid hourly, what percentage of your total settlement payment ended up going to your legal fees?
Thanks for your help!

@1bsd If you look back in old message threads you can find detailed summaries of the RA process. It is driven at a division level, and involves multiple layers of management (starting at the top, not just 1st or 2nd line), plus legal and HR. Many variables are considered, both personal- (about you, your skills, your abilities, your achievements, your band potential, your current pay) and business-related (how the division/organization/department is doing, legal and HR considerations, stuff like that). Decisions are made systematically and at a high management level on who gets the axe, then RA packages are prepared for each selected employee.

Can anyone elaborate on how an RA list gets made and then carried out? Is it a data scientist in HR asked to put in criteria and search employee serial numbers based on that or is it your FLM or second line that has to keep a current list? Is there an RA list team in every country? Any details?

I have a slightly different take on PIP’s vs RA’s. RA’s are for the excessive employees left over from businesses that IBM chooses to exit. Watson health, weather, Intel servers, and Power on Linux come to mind. Yes LOP is still there, but it was still born and has not caught on. PIP’s are for any measurable current job that IBM chooses to reduce costs in. PIP requirements make it easy to give a thumbs up or thumbs down measurement that can’t be easily appealed. The terms of PIP’s are worse because it gives managers a way to use a back door tool to get the impacted employee to volunteer to leave. (eg now that you have seen the terms of the impossible PIP, resign instead, and we’ll give you severance and possibly some parting gifts). REMEMBER IBM’s core beliefs have morphed over the years to be solely focused on lowering cost. No more respect for the individual, customer satisfaction or excellence. Instead it’s focused on will you work for less. That’s what happens when you change the strategy from being innovative to perform services.

They're also trying to avoid age discrimination lawsuits.

They've been "pummeled" by an inordinate number of them over the past few years, forcing them to settle (ie: they refuse to turn over incriminating internal documents during the lawsuit's discovery phase hoping the attorney and respective client show signs of fatigue and/or shows an interest in dropping the suit...re: "Making Dinobabies extinct" internal memos).

Having employees "fire themselves" (ignoring RTO mandate) applies to all age groups, thus they avoid potential age discrimination suits.

I've seen, firsthand, how they play this game. Fortunately, they eventually realized (after several years) that my attorney was like a "pit bull on a pork chop" and wouldn't go away. Yes, I sued IBM and won...just as several hundred (no exaggeration) others did.

Just an outside observation from a former RA, but it seems to me that rather than not wanting to pay severance, IBM is actually no longer able to pay severance. I got the axe many years ago, when severance was 2 weeks per year of service, up to a maximum of 6 months. Then it was 3 months, now it's 1 month? No months (PIP)? Something like that.

As IBM has whittled itself down and sold itself off over the years, it looks like they have run out of budget to give anything to the dearly departed. I can see a time when departing employees will have to check their bank accounts like bar and restaurant employees, making sure that their final paychecks actually clear the bank. What a mess.

No more layoffs... only PIPs resulting in firing and termination because people who have been told to go back to the office, don't.

IBM does no longer want to have to pay severance.