IBM to GTS staff: Not volunteering to leave with a redundo cheque? We'll give you a helping hand IBM has slammed shut the window of opportunity for Global Technology Services (GTS) staff to put themselves forward for voluntary redundancy, meaning a requisite number will now be forcibly ejected. The process began in late February and early March for different parts of the GTS division. Big Blue put 1,248 frontline techies …
I think that he implied it.
Even if he was an employee of a contracting firm, he could end up losing his job due to a limited bench time and no one is hiring at the moment for consultants.
However there are still projects and work going on. People are getting hired as we speak.
No its not the same in most places, I suspect in the UK they have tougher labour laws that requires IBM to look for volunteers first. Maybe its how they "prove" they have tried to re-deploy them first, before firing them.
In the rest of the world, where they can get away with it, they try to get rid of the most expensive employees first, which usually means the oldest.
Isn't this the way it works anywhere? Organization decides it needs to reduce headcount, so asks for those who want to go to throw their hat in the ring.
No. One of the banks I used to work at provided no volunteering opportunities. Redundancies were always the lowest performing 10%, assessed and cut at least once per year even during good times, and simply more rounds of that if costs had to come down.
I had a discussion with an asshole boss I was trying to get away from and HR, and they basically told me I was so far ahead of my then pay grade in terms of performance that I effectively had a job for life, but knowing I wanted to leave, it was going to be THAT job for life. They weren't bluffing - I thought they might be and called it, and I still had the same job 2 rounds later, so I had to walk with nothing.
He's not the same.
But that doesn't mean he can immediately change the culture.
The only people who are secure are the bean counters who do nothing more than the paperwork.
Of course they were all off shored to lower cost offices already with a few resources within the country of work.
... has seen Microsoft promote Teams, and tbh, now we've been WFH I've been using it a lot more, and I've quite warmed to it. MS have been advertising Teams, and how it is keeping people working together, and collaborating. IBM were advertising before Covid 19,... haven't seen the ads recently,... and well, what have they got to offer us in our hour of need? Give it ten years and IBM will be beyond recognition, living off patent royalties, and possibly still alive in the mainframe market,... although I'm in the middle of a presentation by Microsoft at the moment, as we're moving more to Azure, and well, on prem compute is looking like it doesn't have much of a future, bar maybe banks and research establishments.
Notes was flogged off to HCL
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/07/hcl_18bn_ibm_software/
LotusHCL Notes
@Dr Syntax: "Everything goes in, out"
KInda, we had partitions and subsystems on our Mainframes and Midrange kit decades ago, long before full OS virtualisation, but it was the same idea I guess,.. before we starting hurling discrete tin at racks like there was no tomorrow..... but with cloud, getting your data back is going to be the sticking point I fear.
"MS have been advertising Teams, and how it is keeping people working together"
Yeah, on that subject....anyone know how much the Met Police have been bribed?
Should the Police be taking money from businesses to promote their products? If so I've a Cryptocurrency business I need promoting.
In my professional life was to engineer my redundancy. I wanted to go sailing and having helped others through the process as an employee rep I knew the process and managed to strong arm them into giving me the push.
If I can just do the same in a couple of years early retirement will be on the cards.
Work is something I do to pay for the boat. I don't mind it and am OK with being a lowly sys admin but I much prefer sailing - especially when I can have rum punch with Martinique rum in it. So, yes, persuading an outsourcing company that I was surplus to requirements was a proud achievement.
<pompous git>
I don't solely measure my self worth by the work I do but how I live my life
</pg>
"I don't solely measure my self worth by the work I do but how I live my life"
@Roger Kynaston - since work represents quite a big portion of most people's life I'd suggest you'd do better at finding a career that makes you happy. Since that's part of how you live your life.
It is possible to both enjoy your work and go sailing... That was my point really.
takes me back a decade or two. CSC (remember them, I thought not) tried this at Y2K bubble burst. InHuman Remains were deluged. Call was cancelled after a day or so in Oz. Odd how the best and brightest were first in queue to go. Corporate amnesia could be an interesting study for a psych student of big organisations. The valuing of mass stupidity make anti social media look normal
I don't think you know who GTS is - it's the descendent of IBM Global Services in the same way BCS is the descendent of PwC Consulting after the sorting hat of 2003.
They've been cutting costs by cutting experienced staff ever since and losing revenue by cutting experienced staff at the same time.
There are several problems.
Firstly, IBM keep bidding below market rate to grab contracts. If they win, then immediately they are operating at a loss. Most of the bids appear to be formed with offshoring to 'cheaper' locations (unless otherwise expressly stated in the contract). Where people are protected by employment laws, the clock starts ticking. Where they are not, they are terminated as soon as IBM can tick a box to say that some form of knowledge transfer has taken place (regardless of the quality).
For the UK, employment law gives people a little protection, but not much. Employee Forums - pretty much another tick-box exercise by IBM. There isn't a damned thing anyone can do to change IBM's mind. You can point out quality of service issues. You can point out how unhappy the customer is. You can point out the sky is blue. Doesn't matter one bit. Recently its got to the point where it doesn't even matter how good you are.
Someone elsewhere in the thread alluded to only 'dead wood' being left. Most of the "dead wood" is cut away as soon as its possible to do so. IBM are now busy chopping away at the trunk, and the tree is going to fall over real soon.
In this period senior executive level decisions were made to invest IBM’s profits in share repurchases (also driving Executive bonuses) and the infamous 2015 EPS (Earnings Per Share) Roadmap. This has subsequently been shown to be in stark contrast with Amazon, Microsoft and Google (GCP) who were investing hard in Public Cloud capabilities and capacity. IBM should and could have been a leader in Hybrid Cloud capabilities (linking together public and private cloud abilities and needs) but decided not to prioritise the required people, process, automation and DC capacity investments .. the rest is now history and like watching a car crash in slow motion over and over again, best ask where Is SJP now, retired to the Hamptons maybe ?
I think it was earlier. About 1994 when an outsider CEO came in who did not understand mainframe business model and merely saw a chance for a big one of bonus. management droid bonuses seem to be the motivating force for very short term decision making. To regenerate industries bonuses should be scrapped. One should not need institutional bribery to do the job one is paid for.
for what it is worth Cringely has done many articles on IBMs slow death
"About 1994 when an outsider CEO came in who did not understand mainframe business model..."
Wrong. Lou Gerstner saved the company when it was about to choke to death on the mainframe-plus-SNA business model that was already obsoleted by commodity servers and the Internet. Although he did a bit of the share option incentive stuff, and share buy-backs to enhance the bull market, it was the next guy (Sam) who started the ruinous accountant-based "shareholder value" "services-driven" crap that ruined the company, and who also picked another one like him (Ginni) who just kept cranking the same handle. It will be great if Arvind Krishna can correct things, but if not, IBM will join DEC and ICL in Computer Company Heaven.
There are signs that Arvind is doing things right, like stopping the share buy-backs:
https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/04/21/the-next-ibm-platform-revisited/
Paris, because IBM paid for a lot of Hilton nights for me at one point.
In the 1970's when IBM was known as a company with great benefits that was doing very well financially,
it still moved employees around a lot. IBM was said to stand for "I Been Moved".
IBM has not done so well the past 20 years. Retirement benefits if one completes 30 years with IBM now are a small fraction
of what they were in 1970. Warren Buffett bailed on IBM stock sometime in the past 10 years.
But as articles like this indicate, IBM still moves people around a lot.
Thanks,
Tom
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