Massive Layoff Underway At IBM

Tekla Perry writes: Project Chrome, a massive layoff that IBM is pretending is not a massive layoff, is underway. At more than 100,000 people, it is projected to be the largest mass layoff by any U.S. corporation in at least 20 years. Alliance@IBM, the IBM employees' union, says it has so far collected reports of 5000 jobs eliminated, but those are just numbers of those getting official layoff notices. According to anecdotal reports, IBM appears to be abusing the performance appraisal system to cut additional employees without officially laying them off.

Comments

But We Need More H1-Bs!

[KermodeBear]

We just can't find enough tech workers here in the USA! Honest!

my prayers go out to my fellow nerds at IBM

[raymorris]

I'm sure many Slashdot readers will be directly affected by this, either being laid off themselves, surviving the layoffs only to go work in turmoil every day, or have their spouse or other loved one laid off. That's hard to deal with. Times will get better, of course, but it sure may not seem like it right now. Our hearts go out to you.

Re:my prayers go out to my fellow nerds at IBM

[ancientt]

Thank you for some perspective. I've been reading the other posts and I've been just a little disgusted by the entitlement attitude throughout. I've worked for a company that went under, worked for a division that was eliminated, worked for a company that couldn't pay me for a while and been fired for problems that weren't my fault (that's four different employers.) It sucks, but none of them owed me a job. I'm not owed a job even now when I feel I'm doing great work for the company that employs me.

I was very close to writing a snarky post.

Your comment reminded me how much it sucks to wonder how you're going to get by, what you're going to do to take care of your children and if you'll ever get back to where you were. IBM may need to do this; they've been slowly building to an implosion for decades. I'd love to have IBM come back. I root for companies that can come back from the brink of oblivion, like Yahoo is, like Microsoft is trying to and like Radio Shack has failed to manage. I hope that in ten years, when my children are telling me about how cool IBM is, I'll be able to say that there was a time it looked like they were doomed before they turned it around however painfully.

To those who have to find new jobs, I add my heart goes out to you and I hope I get to work with you some day when we can both look back on this as a point when things started to get better.

Re:Tsk. And they wonder where employee loyalty wen

[TechyImmigrant]

They didn't need to do this to stay profitable.

Companies exist to produce profits, not to provide employment. If an employee is not providing net value, then it is better for the company, and the overall economy, for that employee to go somewhere else. In the long run, it is better for the employee as well.

You do know that layoffs lead to your most experienced productive staff leaving, because it's easy for them to get employment elsewhere right? So while a big corp thinks layoffs are a way of losing the chaff, it's more effective at losing the wheat. Slowly hiring if you want to grow and slowly losing staff through attrition if you want to get smaller is the right way. If your business sucks, get your staff to start new ones internally. If they're competent, they'll have plenty of ideas.

Re:that happens, but 11 failing quarters in a row

[Kabukiwookie]

The management responsible for these layoffs don't care that much if they're out of a job. Every C-level manager only has to work 1 year after which they could afford never to have to work a day in their life.

People below that... not so much.

When Carly was CEO at HP, she had a 4 million dollar salary and at some point she gave herself a 16 million dollar bonus for saving lots of money (almost all HP employees waived 1 day's worth of salary at Carly's request just a few month's before she gave herself that bonus).

The current HP CEO on the other hand already has a 16 million dollar salary package. If HP goes tits up tomorrow, she's really not going to lose any sleep over it.

Re:You are the 1%

[lucm]

I would mod this up if I wasn't boycotting the mod system.

About 15-20 years ago, a gig in the US was a great opportunity for a Canadian IT worker. Now the big US companies bring in cheap Indian and Chinese workers, and it's the few American IT workers who find a gig in Canada that are lucky.

I'm not saying that Indian or Chinese workers are less qualified (it doesn't take a PhD to figure out how to configure Exchange anyways) but the fact is that money is bleeding out of the country instead of pouring in.

Re:Tsk. And they wonder where employee loyalty wen

[aardvarkjoe]

No. IBM is not asking for volunteers. They are cutting their under-performers. Employees usually know which of their coworkers are deadwood, and if done right, some pruning can lead to a morale boost. The big risk is if you don't cut deep enough and have to come back for another round.

This certainly was false in my area during the last big round of layoffs. (No word yet on whether we'll be seeing layoffs this time round or not.) High performers were cut as well as low performers. You're right that we know who falls into which category -- and it is very obvious that they're not just cutting underperformers.

In addition, whenever there are ill-conceived layoffs in process, there are always some employees that decide that they have had enough of taking on extra work while waiting for the axe to fall on themselves, and jump ship of their own accord. We've seen a couple of those already, and they tend to be high performers themselves -- since they're the ones who are confident of being able to find another job.

Re:Tsk. And they wonder where employee loyalty wen

[andymadigan]

That may be true, but they're being very underhanded in the way that they're conducting these layoffs. Apparently some employees took a deal in the past couple of years that protected them from layoffs, in return for early retirement after a few years of reduced hours. The only exception was if they got the lowest score on their evaluation. Suddenly competent employees are being found incompetent, so that they can be fired.

That's one example. I don't work for IBM, never did, and after they pull this, they'll have trouble convincing anyone who has another option to work for them. They've screwed themselves for years, any agreement they make is clearly not worth the paper it's written on.

I think IBM's management must know the company is in its death throes, they're just slowly shedding people to minimize chaos.