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      IBM

      Engaged Employer

      IBM reviews

      3.9

      78% would recommend to a friend

      (107,070 total reviews)
      avatar

      Arvind Krishna

      76% approve of CEO

      68% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      4.2

      Diversity & inclusion

      4.0

      Culture & values

      4.0

      Work/Life balance

      3.8

      Career opportunities

      3.6

      Compensation and benefits

      3.5

      Senior management

      IBM has an employee rating of 3.9 out of 5 stars, based on 107,070 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The IBM employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Informationstechnologie industry (3.9 stars).

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Reviews by job title

      107K reviews
      4.0
      Aug 26, 2014

      Advisory Engineer in STG, IBM

      Advisory engineer
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Disclaimer: A lot of what I'm writing below of course depends on the work area and management chain. But I found this to be fairly pervasive policies in IBM in my 9+ years with the company. 1. IBM's policies and management are very flexible when it comes to working remotely or accommodating various life situations (sick days, doctor visits, etc.). Management is encouraged to measure an employee by their work and impact, and not by hours spent at their office. 2. Great colleagues! Though unfortunately, many have been leaving due to the instability of IBM's HW development business. 3. At least in my area, there's a high level of flexibility on which projects should I undertake based on my and my management assessment of business impact.

      Cons

      1. Unfortunately, IBM still uses the "normal distribution" rating system, where at the end of the year each employee is ranked as a top contributor (5%), above average contributor (15%), average contributor (~75%), and bottom contributor (5%). This curve is difficult to apply in the R&D world, where you may have many members of the team working long and hard hours, and end up being "average contributors" at the end of the year, because there just isn't room for all to be top contributors. 2. The above may not be so disturbing, if only IBM didn't practically cancelled all raises, performance bonuses and incentive for the non top-performers. I've had a consistent "above average" rating in the last 4-5 years, and my raise and performance bonus were ridiculous mere 1.5-2% of my salary. Were I rated "average contributor" I would have gotten NOTHING. So you can imagine that people can go year after year without any raise to their salary. From talking to manager friend, this is IBM's way to eliminate the non-top-performers without having to fire them, as part of its direction of reducing US manpower. 3. Hiring freeze in many areas - again, as part of IBM's attempt to reduce its workforce across North America and Europe we see many jobs move to the India and Far East markets. This is of course upsetting to see local teams shrink and disappear, especially when many great local IBM colleagues and experts begin to drop out. From my experience thus far working with India SW teams - they are still very far away from the standards I would have expected from US and Europe based teams. 4. Poor top down communication about company's and divisions' future. Employees learn from rumors and news websites what's about to come...

      avatar
      IBM Response
      10y
      Thanks for sharing your experience, and we're glad that you've had a positive experience working with talented colleagues and taking advantage of IBM's programs. IBM is in the midst of a major transformation, --our Systems business is going through its own changes to strengthen competitiveness. Change is never easy. As part of our transformation, we just launched a whole new approach for how we are coaching employees, delivering feedback and managing reviews. No distribution guidelines or what some think of as 'stacked rankings." What's particularly great is that this was co-designed with our employee base from all over the world... to the tune of hundreds of thousands of page views, comments, on-line debates and discussions. IBMers even named the new system Checkpoint, to reflect the regular feedback rituals we're adopting. Managers are more empowered with the new methodology to help them acknowledge the great work of their teams and help their employees develop professionally. These steps and more are showing up in our employee surveys as well. So IBMers are feeling the change. We are confident these changes will help us in continuing to attract and retain great talent.
      4.0
      Jun 4, 2020

      IBM is not the same company it used to be

      Bid proposal manager
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Salary is good, availability of education to grow your career, work life balance is good.

      Cons

      Constant layoffs, eroding baseline, insecurity of retaining your job and potential sale of specific divisions. Target for RA once you hit the 20 year mark.

      5.0
      Jan 8, 2016

      New Performance Management System

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      IBM Human Resources did it right. From the basic premise of a need to change, to using agile methods for design and feedback, to rolling it all out. They really are walking the talk when it comes to how best to provide feedback in a fast-moving, social environment. While the outside debate rages on about the value of performance management systems, IBM has done something about it, and has spent time listening to employees and incorporating their feedback into the design elements of the new system. No more forced distribution, with multiple touchpoints during the year and a human-scale time horizon around goal-setting and goal attainment. All around, this is one of the best approaches to performance management that I've seen.

      Cons

      We'll wait to see how well managers can incorporate this. Any performance review and coaching system is only as good as the managers who implement it. But the basics are all there for them to use.

      avatar
      IBM Response
      10y
      Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on your IBM experience. Given IBM's transformation and what we have heard from many IBMers, we are changing our approach to performance management this year. Designing the program has been a collaborative effort with employees so we can ensure it reflects the way we all work. Feedback from employees like you is essential to driving positive change at IBM, so thank you again for your comments. - Michelle (Ames) Rzepnicki (Director, Performance Management).
      Viewing 58 - 60 of 107,070 Reviews
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