IBM

• Work from home is the only pro I see.

• I am working in IBM India Pvt Ltd.

• No salary hike. I have not been given a salary hike in three years in a row. Most employees are in the same state or have been given hikes of a mere 1.2% in two years.

• No promotion. I have not been promoted in the six years of my working span.

• No freedom for employees to do independent research in an open-source environment.

• Senior management to lower management does not encourage lower employees for out-of-the-box research or learning open-source tools and technology. Instead, they stress or force employees to take up only company-related tools or products.

Two examples of recent incidents: One employee wanted to work on Python and network security technology but was discouraged by his manager and did not get much help. With environment restrictions, he could not install open-source tools to do research and practice. Yet, he worked on his own system, did wonderful research, and thus got his work published through an outside publishing house. Seeing his work, his managers now want him to cite his work and earn over his hard work. Totally unethical management.

• Senior to lower management does not put any trust in low-level employees. Employees need to give business justification for each and every activity they do in the company. This includes the time they received a ticket, including the exact timestamp, when they worked on it, why there was a delay, etc. Employees need to maintain a track record of the number of software they use through the use of Excel sheets, software tools, and web portals.

• Employees need to keep a track record of what training they have done manually and update their manager every quarter.

• Too much manual labor and clerical work.

• On one side, the company is transforming into cloud, analytics, mobile, and Watson. On the other side, when employees want to learn and work in these technologies, management puts a hurdle in the path in the name of process or no openings, etc.

• Most of the trainings recently are seen as self-funded. At first, managers and senior management encourage employees to take these trainings, and when employees register for these trainings, they are told that they have to arrange for their travel and accommodation; in total, it's self-funded. Management gives the excuse of a shortage of funds.

• In my six years of experience, I have never had a chance to meet a visionary in the company. Things are not transparent in the hierarchical order. When asked about the reason behind a particular step/policy of the company, most managers have no clues why they were asked to carry forward such orders. Most of the managers are really stupid and do not even possess the basics of mathematics, policies, implementation, long-term goal definition, and vision.

• Recently, I have seen many violations of government norms and regulations. I independently carried out a survey in the company and also reached the environmental group to inquire about the disposal policy of the electronics in the company but received a warning from the management.

• Big time culprits. No respect for human rights.

• Do not give any respect to basic human needs such as leaves. When an employee applies for leaves, he has to seek approval from many people, along with citing the reason why he needs leaves now and that he cannot be given leaves, that too many. From leaves to other approval processes, the company's functions have mirrored the working of a government organization. Too many processes have induced red tape.

• The promotion process has been designed to further delay the process, thus saving the company a lot of money.

• Internal projects are the worst managed.

• Management puts more stress, effort, and brain in developing stupid ideas and tools which are useless, such as ticket metrics which need to be filled by employees in their respective projects with the exact date and timestamp of the work they did.

• Employees have to bear the brunt if something goes wrong, with too much sermon and speeches.

• In most projects, the managers' attitude is really frustrating and pathetic. In one of the projects, the manager's message to a new joiner was: "They are gods (internal project client - IBMers only), and they give us our salary, so whatever they say we have to do. If you want to fear anybody, you should fear them." This statement clearly shows that most of the managers have lost their self-respect in the wake of the recent transformation and fear their jobs being lost.

They need to change their perception.