Not sure on the number of folks impacted across BUs but RA are coming in Sept. Given that this have been the worst quarter with a historic price drop, let’s hope for the best.
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@1b3 Albany too. Reinterview is such a good idea
@18q. This excessive middle management (especially in consulting) overlap is a result of very poor management at the top. The exec’s are not setting a span of control nor justifying headcount and billable hours. It’s time for middle management to re-interview for their jobs and justify their existence. I’ll bet 80% will not be able to justify their existence and the cost savings via job elimination would total well over a billion.
@12d - Consulting has way more than 13 layers from the bottom to Arvind in many places and I guarantee at least in North America the average span of control is way less than 10 employees per manager, probably closer to 5. It's not uncommon for a Band 10 to have no direct reports and to be the only direct report of a Band D who reports to another Band D who has 3 or 4 directs and who reports to a Band C who has just a handful of directs and reports to another Band C, etc. up the chain. In fact there are absolutely Band Cs with no direct reports which is completely ridiculous.
IBM is one of the most overly managed Fortune 500 companies in the world. The reason for this is historical. (Watson Sr modeled IBM on the military 10-1 ratio). IBM has not strayed from that model over its history “except” when Gerstner first came to town. He reduced management by 1/2 and went from 13 levels to 7. After his first 3 years, management has gradually crept back to the 13 levels and now runs closer to 10-1 ratios. Most modern Fortune 500 companies run in the range of 20-25 to 1 employee to manager ratios. Meta is trialing a 50-1. The current executive team needs to look in the mirror, and decide “are they a management employment company, or are they a “technology” company that needs a light management oversight
@119
I don't want to generalize, but my observations in over 18 years in IBM are:
1st and usually 2nd line managers:
- the less technical people become people managers
- you would expect some kind of leadership, but they usually just communicate ppts from above, quite often not really understanding the topics at all
- should be leaders, having empathy, coaching their teams, be the best. Not at all, just tracking utilization (quite often on out of reality data), how you do on mandatory learnings, days in the office and other stupidities required by their supervisors.
- keeping their mouth shut, knowing they don't know anything, but trying to act as they do (actually valid even more going levels up)
- At least a basic knowledge of Excel and Powerpoint, usually getting help from their team leads or team members, not much else.
- Lucky if you have 1:1 once a month, usually a small talk, usually just good for them to ask you if you can take more workload, which you will get anyway
- Performance reviews, sh-t show, to just tell you, that you should work on your "time management" or other silly bullsh-t, no real work related feedback
- kind of protected when you have the "managers flag" as who knows why, harder to get rid of.
- some trying to do their own pathetic "Fun" all hands, which are complete waste of time, but remember it took them a month to prepare for an hour of complete brainwashing nobody really is interested in.
= during my 18 years i had like same amount of people managers and i never ever had one who was truly listening, understanding. If i needed some help workwise, toolswise i always had to go to my functional manager/s who where able to understand and take action.
Honestly, quite some of the Executives, Directors, VPs are just sh-t talkers, jumping on any hype that helps them to look relevant, but most of them are just egoistic attention seekers, doing videos, lying, not truly interested in the company, their clients and employees. Just their own ego and their own benefits. IBM mastered this class of useless egoistic psychopaths, who don't care about anything else then themselves. It's pathetic. I hope the time changes some day and there'll be people in charge who actually take care of the company, their clients and the employees.
But in current state of the corporate world, i doubt it. Too many trashy people on top.
@119
well said.
@cI IBM hat im Verhältnis zu den Mitarbeiter viel zu viel hochbezahlte Manager teils ohne Personalverantwortung. Wenn IBM Kosten sparen will, wäre hier ein Kahlschag er erforderlich.
What orgs can anyone confirm? My leadership has been more sketch than usual
India government for years has publicly communicated mass incentives for execs taking over any global corporation and bringing jobs to Indians at home and abroad. US and EU will not stand up for their workers or corporations. Any one who does is called names and smeared. India government doesnt care about the stock or working environment of anyone else’s business. They only protect their own.
@be In February 2026 we had to pretend to find “low performers” who were then shown the door in April so…yeah. It did. I’m sure we’ll pretend to find more “low performers” soon and then they’ll be out a couple of months later. It’s an entirely pathetic company at this point.
@xx IBM is the best workplace in the industry. Being handsomely paid a sizeable salary, bonuses and RSUs. Preparing and presenting some slides, once a week.
I am afraid, there might be no other company that can provide the same luxury. Maybe, changing career is required.
@Xw. Given that “next step” is active, I can’t see a voluntary being offered. It’s all about costs and older employees are viewed as costly liabilities
@wk
Is there another voluntary coming?
Asking for a friend.
I manage a team. Layoffs in September-May is a reality.
Executive management needs to be looking over their shoulder. I’m sure RT has blown his chance at CEO due to the 2nd q miss and the CFO and CEO are skating on some pretty thin ice. What makes me say this? The sales re-org. You don’t re-org a sales team 1/2 way thru a year especially when the sales cycles are multiple years long. A re-org implies that upper managements has zero trust in the sales teams and the relationships those sales teams have been reporting on. Remember 80% of a quarter is made day one of any quarter due to ELA’s and upgrades. To have a miss says your sales teams are not in touch with their customers and the board needs to hold the entire sales organization to the same standard. Maybe losing 70 billion in one day has gotten the boards attention to sales execution
@q1 If you exclude recent acquisitions like Red Hat, Hashi, Apptio and Confluent, then 90% of that SW is mainframe software. There really hasn't been any organic SW development at IBM since the late 1990s.
@n3 February
IBM is 80% a mainframe company
By what metric other than cope? Software is both bigger and higher margin.
The atmosphere souring is really accelerating since July.
Finance and Operations is so big because at its core IBM is a financial engineering company NOT a tech company.
@n2 when was this?
@be they did come. People in my organization were RAd. Finance. I know others were too. Maybe your vision is too siloed.
Don't be ibmeciles, people. Get the f out of that place before it's too late.
@cr F&O is a conglomeration of many many many different teams that IBM has unceremoniously slammed together for the purpose of mass elimination. Even the name tells you it is a big MISC - what the heck does Finance have to do with Operations? They were originally separate - but mixing them together is a way to let Finance oversee all decisions.
The group needs to be broken up and moved far away from "Finance".
And IBM was not meant to be just a "mainframe" company - which I agree it is that it really left. Letting MBAs and Finance people micromanage every decision is why IBM is in the bad shape it is. They are buffoons who can fool some of the investors some of the time but after a while they are going to wonder what else is there? Not much! If it was innovative, it was cut. It is that simple.
When you look at the IBM worldwide employee distribution and compare it to other world class operations, two very large inconsistencies become apparent.
Finance and operations is way too big at IBM (39% of employees)
Sales and marketing is also way too big (29% of employees)
Honestly think about it. IBM is 80% a mainframe company so what are 40% of its employees doing in finance and operations. The same can be said for sales and marketing. IBM is way overmanned in these two organizations, and if management wants to restructure the company, I would start here. 30% and 20% respectively would be aggressive goals to aim for
IBM became INCOMPETENT BY MCKINSEY when the G Man Gerstner came in 4-1-93 and after he was a BMOC big man on campus at McKinsey. He knew nothing about IBM or tech so people like that bring in consultants for "plausible deniability" where they can take all the credit (he saved IBM and make elephants dance!) if it works out and blame the consultants if it does not. Ever since then IBM likely has had a $50M or $100M annual contract with McKinsey. IBM has been like Ron Burgundy for a very long time.
"I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal."
Big Blue stands tall in the digital night,
Chasing the metrics and guiding the light,
Yet deep in the boardroom where data is clean,
The M stands proudly for old McKinsey.
Whatever they whisper, the giant obeys,
Following the plans through the corporate maze.
How many more old and experienced people does IBM want to get rid of?
The new (young) people hired are not doing the job, not to mentioned they never last more than 2 years.
Again, just another stupid action by the Execs to save their as--s and hope that the next few quarters are going to be OK.
My prediction is that Q3 is also going to be a disaster... this is based on what I have seen in the first month of Q3. July was a total disaster. The whole Sales organization is being re-organized again as we speak, it is total panic. Most sales guys are getting new customers.
Great job RT, you are really a genius!
Just keep any eye out for the WARN notifications. It will appear 60 days before. That is if we follow the rules …….
Not only is offshoring being sized for both the USA and Northern Europe, but outsourcing of internal jobs is also in scope as the decision to restructure the back office and automation efforts has been made.
the @OP is fishing for information.
I heard they were coming in February and didn’t come