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IBM has come a long way from "Employment for Life" which was one policy that almost killed it. A couple things jump out on this article: 1 - One analyst has e

IBM has come a long way from "Employment for Life" which was one policy that almost killed it. A couple things jump out on this article: 1 - One analyst has estimated that IBM will cut 13,000 of its more than 434,000 workers, based on the amount of money set aside for the rebalancing This is actually very few. Cutting 3% is hardly a rebalancing. Many companies cut double that every year as part of annual performance management. 2 - "Just heard from a colleague in Bangalore that job cuts there have begun. Workers asked to leave on the spot. He claims 6 out of 23 people in his department." If that's the biggest you can find, again it's hardly notable. If you're in a division that's being sold off because it's low margin, expect a lot more. 3 - The one thing that did surprise me is that they're cutting first in India. Is that because of political pressure? Cutting 3% of your headcount in India won't cut 3% of your payroll costs, because the resources are so much cheaper there. My heart is out to anyone who gets surprised with a cut. It's painful, especially if you are early in your career and don't have a lot of money tucked away. In the medium term it can be very empowering. In the long term, I don't know of anyone who was laid off who didn't say, "Good riddance!"

smackfu 13y ago
>Cutting 3% is hardly a rebalancing. Many companies cut double that every year as part of annual performance management. Depends on whether there is a hiring freeze or not.
- mathattack 13y ago
  True. Though I find corporate hiring freezes to be a reaction to organizational disfunction. If you starve your growing areas because you haven't found a way to keep your stagnant divisions from increasing headcount, then you have bigger problems. Apple used to be guilty of this. They would do hiring freezes, then when they'd lift them, managers would hire everyone in sight. There was no concept of internal transfers because you could never get a backfill. Terrible way to run a business.
  - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
    Agreed! Iowa's genius governor did a hiring freeze for the state universities. Which mean researchers could not spend their grants in Iowa; they fled. Brilliant move.
    - mathattack 13y ago
      I hadn't even thought of that unintended consequence. A firm I used to work for did a hiring freeze. The well run parts (in a part of the world that is easy to fire people) of the organization obliged. The poorly run parts (in a place that's hard to fire people) didn't. So the bloated core got fatter, and the money generators got starved for growth.
      - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
        Happens so often - like executives can't do simple math. Example: I contracted at a mobile-handset company. Their best seller accounted to 40% of revenue. The CEO came to our site, gave a talk: you guys have to cut down R&D expenses, you amount to 20% of total R&D budget. So, 20% of R&D yielded > 40% of revenue (more than one product came from our site). How is that a problem? I was flabbergasted. As a contractor I said nothing, but was astonished no one else spoke up either.
        mathattack 13y ago
        I get the need to improve productivity but blind mandates suggest that something else is wrong. At yet another employer they did a very well thought out layoff of approx 15% of the workforce. It was very well thought out and preceded by 6 months of heavy analysis on new ways to work. The culture was hurt but the firm saw process improvements too. Perhaps it was too easy as every time management needed to cut after that, they skipped the process improvement step.
        JoeAltmaier 13y ago
        I guess I see it differently. It seems to me that you can cut back, and enter the profit-margin-death-spiral. Or you can invest in new growth. And our site had the highest return on investment in the company. Cutting back was suicide. In fact, that's how it played out - declining revenues due to a stagnant product line, for years. I work at a startup now.

smackfu 13y ago

>Cutting 3% is hardly a rebalancing. Many companies cut double that every year as part of annual performance management. Depends on whether there is a hiring freeze or not.

mathattack 13y ago
True. Though I find corporate hiring freezes to be a reaction to organizational disfunction. If you starve your growing areas because you haven't found a way to keep your stagnant divisions from increasing headcount, then you have bigger problems. Apple used to be guilty of this. They would do hiring freezes, then when they'd lift them, managers would hire everyone in sight. There was no concept of internal transfers because you could never get a backfill. Terrible way to run a business.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  Agreed! Iowa's genius governor did a hiring freeze for the state universities. Which mean researchers could not spend their grants in Iowa; they fled. Brilliant move.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    I hadn't even thought of that unintended consequence. A firm I used to work for did a hiring freeze. The well run parts (in a part of the world that is easy to fire people) of the organization obliged. The poorly run parts (in a place that's hard to fire people) didn't. So the bloated core got fatter, and the money generators got starved for growth.
    - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
      Happens so often - like executives can't do simple math. Example: I contracted at a mobile-handset company. Their best seller accounted to 40% of revenue. The CEO came to our site, gave a talk: you guys have to cut down R&D expenses, you amount to 20% of total R&D budget. So, 20% of R&D yielded > 40% of revenue (more than one product came from our site). How is that a problem? I was flabbergasted. As a contractor I said nothing, but was astonished no one else spoke up either.
      - mathattack 13y ago
        I get the need to improve productivity but blind mandates suggest that something else is wrong. At yet another employer they did a very well thought out layoff of approx 15% of the workforce. It was very well thought out and preceded by 6 months of heavy analysis on new ways to work. The culture was hurt but the firm saw process improvements too. Perhaps it was too easy as every time management needed to cut after that, they skipped the process improvement step.
        JoeAltmaier 13y ago
        I guess I see it differently. It seems to me that you can cut back, and enter the profit-margin-death-spiral. Or you can invest in new growth. And our site had the highest return on investment in the company. Cutting back was suicide. In fact, that's how it played out - declining revenues due to a stagnant product line, for years. I work at a startup now.