Please post this anon in reply to Steve Bynes post in the thread posted on Friday at 1:39 pm
I contacted a hiring manager regarding a role that I found in GOM for which I am extremely and uniquely qualified for. I met all of the requirements which included deep industry knowledge. The hiring manager replied, which we all know is highly unusual to begin with, and said that the role was only open to external candidates and was not open at all at this time. I thanked him for the reply and expressed surprise that the role was not open to any internal employee and summarized my exceptional qualifications. It was posted on GOM for internal candidates and said nothing of the sort. He of course did not reply. I then forwarded the email to my HR 'partner' to ask why these roles were not open to internal candidates. No reply of course which is typical of IBM HR. They are apparently always very busy doing something other than dealing with humans. I then asked my manager why the roles were not open to internal candidates and he did not know why either. He said the hiring manager should not have told me that. He told me that I need to continue to do my day job for the next three months which is different from what the VP (his boss) told me about my priorities for the next three months when he informed me first thing after Labor Day of my fate. (By the way, he sent the calendar invite at 7pm on Friday before the long weekend for that Tuesday. I knew immediately what it meant and I spent the weekend in angst and fear). I told him that as an older woman in tech, my priority is to find a new job. It isn't easy at all. My boss said that he didn't think age or gender discrimination should not be a problem. I'm not sure what world he lives in. I know he very much wanted me to think I had a shot at another internal job so that would be a carrot to me to 'keep doing my day job'. This is a dishonest sham. Just a week ago, the VP hired one of his PWC buddies - an older white male - at a very senior level. I'm sure this must have created the need to layoff others on the team to balance the budget.
The sad thing is that I am being blocked from a role for which I am extremely qualified, working in the state I already live in, for a client that has a CIO who is a woman my age. And all that hype about industry focus??? Where does that come in? The role asks for knowledge of IBM's solutions - so someone external to the company is better qualified? These roles, by the way, report up to the niece of a former senior executive who along with her brother were both hired into very senior roles themselves.
Isn't this stuff illegal??! Targeting older workers, regardless of their skills and performance, and deliberately denying them their 401k match by a few days. These older workers are the ones that need the match the most because many will not be able to get another corporate job. And I know not every one likes to hear about the challenges of being a woman in the corporate world - eyes roll - but all I can say is that IBM is the most male dominated company I've ever worked for. And this is in spite of the window dressing in the senior roles. In the mid and junior levels, the typical percentage of woman on teams is below 30%. In GBS, the percentages are deplorable.
I'm not complaining in any way about the notice period and the one month severance. I don't understand the logic but I am sure it benefits IBM in some way and is not done with the employees in mind. Maybe it is a different tax treatment for them or helps them hide the numbers of people. And let's face it - some companies give employees almost nothing.
What I take issue with is the dishonest and unfair way these things are conducted. It has created a corporate culture that is toxic at best. And the deliberate targeting of people over a certain age is shocking. I've worked for other world class companies in my career and I've never seen such an ugly and phony culture.
I could write a book about what I have observed about the culture at IBM. I also believe that I Cringley's prediction two years ago that IBM was going to layoff 25,000 people was correct. They have been doing it quarter by quarter, month by month. They basically tell LOB leaders to offer up a certain number of people each round and they are free to pick and choose. And this is not about skills, talents or diversity. All the while they continue to bring in senior people from the outside. They brought in a new head of GBS NA and a new global leader of GBS who had been in retirement from a senior role at Accenture for five years. This was so Bridgett, Sarah and Lori could be moved into other roles after failing for over four years to achieve revenue targets. My personal belief is that these moves are to polish the chrome on GBS, which is what they call this ongoing purge, to prepare GBS to be spun off in some way. Either that or that retired Accenture executive was simply bored and needed a new challenge.
Stockholders and customers need to decide if they want to have anything to do with a company that is without a soul. IBM is about machines. Not people. I am disappointed that Warren Buffet does not hold IBM accountable for decent, honest and legal human resource policies. IBM's approach is completely out of step with companies like Starbucks, Whole Foods and The Container Store to name a few that treat employees with respect.
As hard as it is for me to let go, accept this and move on and as afraid as I am about the possibility of having the career that I worked so hard to build cut short many years before I had expected, I have to have hope that life without the anxiety of IBM will be better.