1. Leadership is negative. I have personally heard VPs yell/scream/use profanity at their direct reports in front of 50+people on a call.
2. A large percentage of your colleagues are incompetent. So many times, I had to chase people to do their jobs. Though, for IBM, hiring incompetent people seems like a great way to create manager jobs.
3. Upper management (at least HR) tries to 'inspire' through fear-mongering, and this trickles down to the lower levels. Employees are afraid to ask for simple, reasonable requests in fear of backlash from managers. I've also heard them directly mock their employees in front of others like a child on a playground.
- Like other service companies, IBM offers a wide variety of industries for your interest. However, management appears to 'block' most movement. Some of my colleagues were patient enough and waited 5 years for a change. Others gave up and left the company for a higher pay position in the industry they were looking for.
4. The individual target bonuses are high, but the company is leaking money, so rewards are low. On my last year, I received the highest rating possible, and received a formal IBM pdf stating my bonus was $0. What a slap in the face...
5. Disorganized - IBM has become so large that it is nearly impossible to really work 'as a team'. Like many consulting firms, IBM has resources in other countries (mainly India) due to cost. Unlike other consulting firms, the travel 'legislators' do not work well; they are not flexible. On an internal deployment, IBM travel refused to grant approval to even APPLY for a visa for my Indian colleagues because the IBM criteria of X days was not met.
6. Too much time is spent on administrivia. Things which should be simple like time cards, expenses, booking travel require so many hoops, IBM has pages-long documentation on how to get one travel request. Just think of how much time is spent for each new project manager reading through this documentation just so they can do their actual jobs.
