What a surprise ? Not ! More barefaced lies and FUD from Alvind, Krabanaugh and the Pipmunks. But we all know that already. Whatever happened to Design Thinking ? It went out of fashion. We need new IBM buzzwords for putting a load of BS on Kramer.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ibm-s-gen-z-hiring-pledge-collides-with-harsh-layoffs/ss-AA1RcGLF?ocid=msedgntp&pc=W099&cvid=6927aafe67f94a858f69a0409678bfdc&ei=31
It is illegal to hire based on age. S-x. Skin color. Period. IBM has gone way beyond Woke. And ESG. And DEI. And BLM. Avoid at all costs. Dumpster fire.
Title VII is a federal law, part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, s-x (including pregnancy), or national origin. It applies to employers with 15 or more employees, employment agencies, and labor organizations, and makes it illegal to discriminate in hiring, firing, promotions, wages, and other terms of employment. The law also prohibits retaliation against an employee for reporting discrimination or participating in an investigation.
Being under 35 years of age places you in a highly preferred employee category at IBM. But no one is fully protected when the budget axe swings. Nobody.
Since you mentioned design thinking, it went out of fashion for good cause. I once had 3 full-time designers with several more on call for my development efforts during the height of the design thinking craze at IBM. Senior executives badly wanted designers to play a major role in our products, but the designers they hired kept winning Darwin Awards. The problem was hiring moderately talented, middle iq smooth talkers with no useful skills. If, instead, they’d retrained first-rate, experienced engineers and product managers (or salesmen burning out on the sales gig) who demonstrated touches of design flair, IBM products could have really gone somewhere. A designer without deep roots in the art of the technically possible, customers’ stated desires, and customers’ actual deeper needs (which they may not acknowledge) … that designer is doomed to fail. And it may be ugly.
Eliminating the huge Watson-era Design organization was a good move — no design may be better than bad design from a politically powerful design function.
If you are a Gen Z, brace yourself if you decide to work for IBM... It is going to be a roller coaster for sure. There is no guarantee for everything and you will be a target for layoffs like anybody else. Heads up!