Pros
- You'll learn what NOT to do at this company and bring that knowledge to your next job. You'll learn how not to make processes and systems overly complex, you'll learn how inefficient it is to have multi-layers in a massive organization, and you'll learn how HR does a great job marketing itself, but underneath, your HR is inefficient, ineffective, disjointed, and silo'ed.
Cons
- IBM is a true marketing engine where externally they elaborate on how great they are, but in actuality this couldn't be further from the truth. They tinker financial statements in a way that is not reflective of actual performance, they fabricate diversity data for their own benefit (as an example, I had an employee that was mixed race and she identified as such...but why do I see IBM reporting her as black?!), they rely on acquisitions to gain new clients because they are unable to do so organically...then they corrupt that new company by introducing them to the mass bureaucracy that exists at IBM...thereby slowing that company's growth. Look at RedHat...I bet had IBM not acquired RedHat, RedHat would have grown way more than it has under IBM's umbrella...unfortunately IBM's lack of execution flexibility and ability has caused RedHat to flounder and not meet it's potential. - When Webster Dictionary defines "BUREAUCRACY," it should have IBM's logo next to it. Bureaucracy exists at every company, but IBM takes it to a whole other level. They have hundreds of IT systems that do not speak to each other (and they're self-proclaimed "leaders" in the Enterprise IT ecosystem)...this causes frustrations as a simple approval needs to go through 7 different systems and thus 7 different approvers. Good luck trying to implement change to IBM's IT systems...because not only do you have to sunset multiple (10+ systems along with all the teams that support those systems), but IBM also does not like to use products developed externally as they believe it interferes with IBM's own products (while I admire IBM supporting their own tools...this would be a lot easier if IBM is actually competent in creating a product that works...which it hasn't). - Pay / Worklife Balance: A senior IBM executive admitted worklife balance does not exist at IBM. This is true...not because of the actual work you need to do, but ALL the additional layers of people, process, and technology you have to go through just to get your work done and to try to implement change. I'll give you an example, If you want to get approval to see your own team's people data, you have to 1) go to your hr partner, 2) go to CIO's access hub, 3) directed to a country hr partner , 4) gain approval from the country legal person, 5) gain approval from the Diversity leader, 6) gain apprvoal from the diversity country resource, 7) gain approval from the team that owns the reporting tool... all of this takes a month...when every other company just goes to workday and pulls up their team's records...any time they want. Think about it, if it takes a month and 7+ steps just to get a simple data request, how is IBM able to successfully support enterprise applications? Technology is supposed to make things faster, unfortunately IBM gets into it's own way and instead of helping, their technology makes things more complicated. Thus, if you were to work here...you'd drown in the bureaucracy and when you sit back and reflect on what you've accomplished...it'll be more about who did you sync up with set up "co-creation" teams, vs what did you actually execute and change.
