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      Able to learn an incredible amount, but workload burnout. - Backup and Restore Administrative - Blues IBM Employee Review

      2.0
      Apr 4, 2012
      Backup and restore administrative - blues
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Learning opportunities, some very knowlegable coworkers, lower level management is good, decent benefits, nice facilities.

      Cons

      Very low pay in the GDF structure, senior management in Dubuque completely out of touch, due to low wages in Dubuque the level of expertise that can be attracted is insufficient, new hires take too long to contribute since they do not know the job, for the few people that can actually do the job, they are completely overworked, constant fire fighting and can never get ahead to be proactive, priorities are focused on the low bang for the buck..."make sure your yearly training activities and quarterly security reports are done and make sure your signature line in email is correct", it doesn't appear they are really concerned about supporting the customer

      Explore other reviews about IBM

      5.0
      Feb 8, 2026
      Anonymous intern
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      - Relaxed and inclusive work environment - Talented and super-intelligent colleagues - Visionary long term research projects

      Cons

      - No con really of note

      4.0
      Aug 26, 2014
      Advisory engineer
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Disclaimer: A lot of what I'm writing below of course depends on the work area and management chain. But I found this to be fairly pervasive policies in IBM in my 9+ years with the company. 1. IBM's policies and management are very flexible when it comes to working remotely or accommodating various life situations (sick days, doctor visits, etc.). Management is encouraged to measure an employee by their work and impact, and not by hours spent at their office. 2. Great colleagues! Though unfortunately, many have been leaving due to the instability of IBM's HW development business. 3. At least in my area, there's a high level of flexibility on which projects should I undertake based on my and my management assessment of business impact.

      Cons

      1. Unfortunately, IBM still uses the "normal distribution" rating system, where at the end of the year each employee is ranked as a top contributor (5%), above average contributor (15%), average contributor (~75%), and bottom contributor (5%). This curve is difficult to apply in the R&D world, where you may have many members of the team working long and hard hours, and end up being "average contributors" at the end of the year, because there just isn't room for all to be top contributors. 2. The above may not be so disturbing, if only IBM didn't practically cancelled all raises, performance bonuses and incentive for the non top-performers. I've had a consistent "above average" rating in the last 4-5 years, and my raise and performance bonus were ridiculous mere 1.5-2% of my salary. Were I rated "average contributor" I would have gotten NOTHING. So you can imagine that people can go year after year without any raise to their salary. From talking to manager friend, this is IBM's way to eliminate the non-top-performers without having to fire them, as part of its direction of reducing US manpower. 3. Hiring freeze in many areas - again, as part of IBM's attempt to reduce its workforce across North America and Europe we see many jobs move to the India and Far East markets. This is of course upsetting to see local teams shrink and disappear, especially when many great local IBM colleagues and experts begin to drop out. From my experience thus far working with India SW teams - they are still very far away from the standards I would have expected from US and Europe based teams. 4. Poor top down communication about company's and divisions' future. Employees learn from rumors and news websites what's about to come...

      636
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      IBM Response
      10y
      Thanks for sharing your experience, and we're glad that you've had a positive experience working with talented colleagues and taking advantage of IBM's programs. IBM is in the midst of a major transformation, --our Systems business is going through its own changes to strengthen competitiveness. Change is never easy. As part of our transformation, we just launched a whole new approach for how we are coaching employees, delivering feedback and managing reviews. No distribution guidelines or what some think of as 'stacked rankings." What's particularly great is that this was co-designed with our employee base from all over the world... to the tune of hundreds of thousands of page views, comments, on-line debates and discussions. IBMers even named the new system Checkpoint, to reflect the regular feedback rituals we're adopting. Managers are more empowered with the new methodology to help them acknowledge the great work of their teams and help their employees develop professionally. These steps and more are showing up in our employee surveys as well. So IBMers are feeling the change. We are confident these changes will help us in continuing to attract and retain great talent.
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