Mar 25, 2011 12:32 PM
17007 Views
(Updated Mar 25, 2011 12:35 PM)
Its my 5 years experience with IBM and it goes like this. Dept: ITD GD, MSD, AOD
IBM India is none other than India Government with tremenous managemnt politics. You will never be motivated by management because as per them you need to be self motivated in every aspect including politics:)
HR here are stewards and of no help because Manager is God in IBM.
Opportunities are there to be seen but experts even can't grab it
Purely Business and Customer oriented organization with no focus on Employee satisfaction. IBM does not worry about employee work life balance and expects you to be available 24x7 for the customers you support. Do not think of overtime payments. You can't dare to take lunch or breakfast with the amount they pay you as incentive(50 Rs wow).
Offer letter may look promising. But don't get driven by it. They almost steal your 12% variable pay from that offer letter and will pay you around 5k to 10k out of your total variable. So remember one thing: If IBM offers you 30% hike compared to your previous organization then it would be actual hike of around 30 - 12= 18%. Now you decide whether to join or not?
Never ever dream of hike > 5 or 6% in IBM. 5 or 6 is exceptional hike for experts and 1-2% is for average performers. Your performance rating is just on paper and will never reflect in to your payout with a reason of poor performance by your IBM department. Think once more. Do you still want to join?
You work for SAP / Oracle/ Peoplesoft / any good technology in the world. But you would only be given free of cost training in AIX and storage management. Your management will always lack in training budget and hence no trainings for you. Do not expect that you learn something during your work as the environment is more of support and learnings, invention by support team is hardly cultivated.
IBM organizes outbound/trips for their employees once or twice in year. But the best thing is employee bares the expenses of his/her trip.
Do not fall in to dreams of commitments shown by management. None will ever come true. If you are like me you may make it come true with whole lot of fights and your performance. But at the end of day you will feel whether you deserved it or begged for it.
Management has a habit of comparing ITD with GBS as that allows them to reject every employee expecation, commitment. The fact is both are equally worst.
Work From Home: This is to attract you. But once you join you will come to know: How many days you can work from home? Why it is not possible in my dept? Who pay for the net connection?
Pick and drop for shifts: Are you worried about train or bus coming 5 mins late? Then how do you think of spending minimum 3.5 to 4 hours in IBM cab with 8 people to pick and drop, with 30 mins of early shift joing and 30 mins of delayed cab departure ensuring good shift coverage. You spend minimum 12 hrs for office with 8 hrs of work. And no one will call you more than average if you only work for 8 hours.
There is lot to say but I think above are the major points which you should keep in mind before you take your decision to join IBM. Remeber IBM says THINK THINK and THINK.
To change:
IBM should have a check on management by arranging skip meetings with employees. Rate management on the track record of manager if they are able to meet employee expectations. Managers lack in people management but almost everyone in IBM is designated as People Manager.
