15 percent of high performers across all band levels are be rated as low performers to reduce bonus pay outs. This is the next move on attrition. Next steps may be pips and subsequent layoffs. You would think a company as large as IBM would be able to handle this differently. Hopefully people who know they are high performers that get a low performance review know this has nothing to do with them and everything to do with the dysfunctional management team at IBM.
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IBM has become more and more aggressive with this low performance identification. It used to be a legit way of helping employees to improve. At least In my experience (11 years as a FLM), things went south after COVID. We went from: please identify low performers and work with them, to: I need 6 low performers from your team, 2 per band (7,8,9) and make sure they come from “high cost” locations, Also from those 6 make sure at least 2 are shown the door (they call it “exit target”), then few months later, you are handed a list of ppl to RA (like in Nov 2025), that has all the ppl “identified” and some more. Because this is done yearly (some times every 6 months), the manager ends running out of low performers on “high cost” locations, and this is when you start seeing, good and productive employees in these (BS) lists.
@dt that’s that IBM bullsh-t we have been talking about!
@dn my manager says I don’t perform at band level and I offered to go down a level and he said it wasn’t being offered as an option
@ah Manager here. Here's how a debanding works:
For example, for bands 1 - 9, if you are demoted 1 level, your salary and GDP does not change BUT you are probably at the top of the salary range for the lower Band level -- which means you are unlikely to get a base salary increase until you get promoted up a level. (Have seen an employee demoted 1 level and then the employee works hard and gets promoted back to their former level -- very rare, but have seen it happen.) Going from a Band 10 to a Band 9, has the same salary implications described above AND your GDP potential is substantially reduced (since Band 10s have a higher potential for GDP). So going from a Band 10 to a Band 9 does not decrease your salary but it will reduce your total compensation due to a lower GDP payout.
@ah demoting from one band to lower band has been a favorite strategy in areas like MCC. Even Execs / Directors are being debanded. Some folk are so fearful of losing their jobs that they take the humiliation and hold on until they’re inevitably RA’ed. The same useless crones at the top seem to hang on by their fingernails though, continuing to make use of the Corporate jet.
@d4 same !
@ag Absolutely true - what you never want to do is rock the boat, no matter how right you may be about a certain issue, a new strategy, perspective, etc.
@OPTop performer here (100% plus club 2 consecutive years) ranked low performer before the most recent round and saw the ugly writing on the wall and didn't want to play the game. Got out well before and sooo glad I did (had several offers so I knew it wasn't me). That's no way to exist. Shame on you IBM.
How do you know they are actually top performers? Did they tell you or are you just assuming?
@as I guess you didn't read the part that said they are great performers. How do great performers deserve it?
They all deserved it. Good riddance
@a6 I think the ones in November had no clue it was coming
@a6 put to a lower band ?
Do you mean a demotion from say Band 8 to Band 7 ? Not seen that happen but how does that work when it comes to a salary cut?
Much easier to put on a PIP or layoff list.
Top performers need to master the art of mediocrity to survive at IBM. They will be top performers in mediocrity.
- Get marked as low performer
- PIP
- RA
- Repeat
do you mean top performance for the band level?
what is next step?
pip
put to lower band or walk out
@a1 yup was going to comment same thing. Last round everyone let go in my vicinity was high level performer. None of them made any sense
Top performers were let go during the last round of layoffs in US. They were expensive.