Thread regarding IBM layoffs

And it's happening. 1000's of GTS NA people are being told today and tomorrow that they have been RA'ed

This is a second posting. The first is deeper down the boards list. You can see where IBM is heading with services. Get ready it’s almost here

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/infosys-ibm-collaborate-help-businesses-170000214.html

ANIF. You are closer to the pin than you can imagine. IBM is quite aware of their shrink rate from GTS and GBS. Bain and McKinsey have both advised IBM on how to address a large portion of this. The deciding factor is costs and what does it cost IBM to service your particular specialty. Expect IBM to roll out their strategies sooner rather than later. The decisions have be made, and it’s just IBM getting their house in order. NOTE for the folks saying “fake news” IBM is driven by costs (as well as every other Fortune 500 company). If they can find another way to service your specialty for less, they are going to make it happen. Good luck to all as Krishna has been given a very short runway to get IBM rightsized.

Managers submitted spreadsheet for RA list last week.
Numerous reqs are being pulled.
GBS and GTS marketing already merged.
This is real and people’s lives will be upended.
GLTA

@akpw there is a lot of overlap in the work GBS and GTS do. Managed apps, public cloud managed services, cloud architecture are just 3. The difference is that GTS’s clients aren’t asking us to do more business with them. In fact they are constantly descoping contracts and dissatisfied with performance. GBS doesn’t have great client relationships either, but they’re better positioned to respond to the market.

While today (Feb 27) is a bust as a prediction, there is most definitely planned RAs in the works - they're called Project Palm. No details on HC, where or when... but it is still in the works. The predictions of massive mergers of GBS and GTS and huge divestitures are speculation. The largest part of GTS - Infrastructure Services just announced a big round of new VP management placements over major portions of the GTS - seems odd that would have happened if all the GBS/GTS and merger and divestiture speculation was true. Also - GBS and GTS focus on completely different kinds of work - merging some back-office activities maybe. Merging everything would be pointless as they'd still focus on completely different customer needs.

FAKE NEWS !

It's being planned and will happen. They are being very quiet on the timing. That piece of info is being held at a high level.

Maybe IBM couldn't get the paperwork done in time and it's been postponed a week? Would not surprise me a bit.

I know my FLM was invited to a meeting a few weeks ago to train her on how to rank her staff and submit that up to HR for RA planning. Since our team only recently were acquired by IBM she was invited by mistake. She didn't know when the RA is going to happen, but it's obvious one is in planning.

Yep, it was all malarkey. Never was a layoff planned. And I think the news of past layoffs were mostly made up, too.

agbo - Same here. Me thinks someone has been posting anonymously to scare everyone. Hopefully, it was all a sham. Either way, it reminds us to keep our resume updated and be looking at opportunities outside of Big Blue.

well, it is 0930 in NA and I see no sign of resource action.......

@9odd+13yUryJb: The "package" has been pretty much standard for several years now, has it not? 90 days notice, once month severance and then out the door.

The medical bridges are a thing of the past, I have not heard of anyone getting anything like that since
the days of a severance package that included 2 weeks pay for every year of service . That being said this is all speculation, whatever happens my friend I wish you the very best !

Today is Wednesday 2/26 and we hear tomorrow is D-Day. Anyone have any insight on what the package in the US may be? Specifically any Medical bridge if one is retirement eligible?

if it's anything like the IBM I know and have lived with, this action will stretch out through the year, with certain areas being clobbered one quarter and others being clobbered the next. GTS seems bound to be the first, probably this week, but the pain will keep coming over the future quarters with more layoffs, divestitures, realignments, etc. Death by a thousand cuts. The "one and done" philosophy never seemed to be part of their playbook here.

The Facebook post doesn’t say anything about 43% by EOQ. It just says 43%. I suspect it means 43% reduction after all of the shuffling is done (Eg layoffs, and sell offs/spinoffs). It’s still a VERY VERY large number, but I suspect 50k are going to be impacted within GTS, but another 50k will be impacted across the rest of IBM. It’s Krishna’s one chance to get it right. With all of the chatter about GBS folks being on the bench, I suspect there to be some impact there too. Throw in areas where IBM doesn’t want to play anymore, and you have a Gerstner type of re-org. Good luck to all. I hope it’s more spinoff and less lay-off as that preserves as many jobs as possible

On the Facebook group, they're talking about 43% of all of GTS being laid off by EOQ. I don't see how that's possible. Even 10% would be an enormous number of people (and revenue assuming these people are on contracts).

Whitehurst accepted the president’s job via a contract. Most executive contracts run for 5 years. If I had to guess, Whitehurst has made his bed

I also believe Whitehurst will see the light and not stick around long enough to take over. And that demolishes the IBM strategy because anyone else will be an IBM lifer and nothing will change.

@5xaf Can confirm I heard this exact plan from a reliable source in GTS. Hiring freezes already in place in Services for some countries. It will be impossible for GTS staff to re align. Good luck to all.

so to continue what @5xaf was saying...

6. 1Q 2021 earnings are a disaster but IBM find a way to spin it
7. 2Q 2021 earnings are still a disaster, IBM stock down significantly after all analysts downgrade IBM
8. 3Q 2021 still no hope to see any growth at IBM, the stock is now at $90. JW leaves the company!
9. 4Q 2021, guess what still no improvements, things are actually worse. A corporate raider takes significant positions in IBM with the goal of replacing the board and the top two levels of IBM management

Maybe IBM will finally dump the useless shanty town innovation centers this round. Nobody there

@5xaf, that is what I understand, too. A post on the Watching IBM FB page stated lists went in this week and 43% of GTS across the board will be let go. How is this even possible?

If I’m reading all of the posts correctly it has a timeline of

1. Lay offs in Feb
2. 30 day notice runs thru end of March. All affected must leave by end of month
3. Re-org of GBS and GTS combining into one cloud services organization in April
4. May = Sell off of pieces that IBM doesn’t deem strategic for its future
5. Dec = completion of sell off pieces and IBM emerges into 2021 “rightsized and realigned”

5imt. When I left IBM I was retirement eligible. IBM’s lay-off package included a years medical. (employee priced medical). Once that runs out, they offered Cobra for 6 months (IBM’s green dollar out of pocket costs plus 2% admin costs). Once that was done, IBM offered retiree benefits. The costs were approx 500 per month for my wife and I under employee price, 1300 per month under cobra, and 2100 per month under retiree. (YES IBM treats retiree healthcare as a profit center so they mark it up). NOTE plan and plan wisely

Looks to me like 30+90 is a better deal. Any idea if I am retirement eligible if I can get extened medical at current employee price?

It isn't all about age. There's also favoritism, nepotism, and "yes men".

The checkpoints rankings are disgusting to say the least. You literally get punished for caring for IBM or clients!

So, yes FLMs definitely get to choose who stays.

Everyone is ranked and stacked. I imagine that's how they can push through this in a week.

It's all nepotism at IBM. My managers spouse will NOT be impacted, you can count on that.
Extract as much as you can out of IBM because that's what they did to you.

In my area FLM absolutely gets to pick, the only thing they do not control is how many, it
is a choice of self preservation and who will have the least impact .

FLMs will try to keep people who can contribute the FLM targets... they are not completely dumb, they clearly understands that they are nothing without their reports.

FLMs rank employees based on who they feel are the most expendable, that's the only input they get into the process

Anyone know if FLMs have any say at all in who stays and who goes? I have always heard the cuts from "above", but how would anyone several levels above a team even know who is who and who is most expendable?

@4qjb Is that a serious question? FLM is handed a list of people on their team to cut and a script to read to them. Even SLM often has little to no input. Finance comes up with the number of heads that have to go in each organization and sends to GMs, GMs have their VPs come up with the list of names to match the number. Then it just rolls downhill from there.

Who creates the list.. FLM or finance?

Managers in NA had to submit, to HR, their spreadsheet list of impacted employees this week.
Word is 1 month as employee to look for new role, then 3 months of sevy.
Rumor is employees are notified 2/27.
GLTA!!

GTS Europe, we had an all hands and we were told to expect an organization announcement in April.

IBM still has 100K too many employees

IBM still has 100K too many managers!