IBM

I liked the talented people that I got to work with.

You get to work on very interesting projects, and you are allowed to be very innovative if it does not rock the boat too much.

The direct management team was also excellent.

There were many opportunities to learn new skills.

I did not like how often first-line managers moved around. New managers appeared every 1.5 years.

IBM has been slash and burning its divisions to make short-term profits. The sentiment is that the company is losing its brand, and customers are no longer brand-loyal to IBM due to disappointment.

The executive team has been too sneaky, saying one thing and then doing the opposite. Because of this, morale within the company was terribly low.

The executives hold the employees to the highest moral values, yet they have not been practicing what they preach. They reduced the 401k match to only happen at the end of the year, claiming they were not reducing benefits. Then they laid people off, and those individuals lost their 401k match for that fraction of the year.

They think this does not directly affect the employees who still work there, but it does because it is a breach of trust. People were holding their breath in December, worried they would be laid off and lose the entire year of 401k match.

You better reinvent yourself as a company because it feels like you have lost public trust. Your only hope is to come out with some new product that is so influential that it becomes a necessity. And then you better take care of your employees. Stop trying to sneak around your employees, because that breach of trust cost more than you will ever save.