IBM

Generally, the people at IBM are all amazing. It is extremely rare to find anyone rude or arrogant. There are a lot of people that care within IBM, and there is a real sense of community.

Disclaimer: I am a UK-based employee.

There are a lot of little things that make me personally feel like more of a number rather than a person. The lack of employee appreciation, the disconnect between upper management and the rest of employees, no free tea or coffee (UK-based), the recent and savage redundancies which have left many feeling betrayed. The list could go on.

Though some of these are minor things, they have a big impact, especially when you look towards other companies, smaller companies, who are able to offer so much more to their staff.

Personally, I feel less and less valued, especially as someone within the technical community. Much of the praise given goes out to the Sellers or Consultants who bring in the big bucks, not to the technical professionals who actually MAKE the solutions. This is furthered by a majority of Executives being from a consultancy background rather than technical, so as a "techie" in what was a "tech" company, there is a disconnect.

Career-wise, you can progress. But it will take a lot of time and require you to have a number of specific "badges" to tick the boxes, speaking from a technical standpoint.

Your career pathway can be heavily influenced simply by what part of IBM you are in. Within the team I work in at the moment, our designer took much, much longer to progress simply because our part of the business did not have a set guideline for what a designer requires in terms of experience/badges in order to progress.

If, as a techie, you wanted to progress into senior roles, the majority of the time you would have to step away from being technical to consulting, as the levels of seniority just aren't there.

Please be more conscious with what you show to us employees. The recent town halls to celebrate Ginni felt extremely out of touch, with stories of lavish meetings and giving expensive gifts, all whilst making 20% of your workforce redundant in Europe.

Couple this with the recent security test phishing email that claimed that employees were being given a free Amazon voucher worth £XX, and it really feels like a kick in the teeth during a sensitive time.