Pros
IBM is one huge team, and you feel it. I have worked a few other places before and it really is great about how you can connect across all of IBM to ask for advice on specific questions - people give their time willingly (at least at the lower levels) to help out on minor questions and concerns. Below are a few of the things that make me happy to work at IBM; - The amount of R&D and global awareness at the brand makes you feel proud to work at IBM. - 'giveback' (i.e. giving some of your time to help charities/at external events) - in this way IBM is really ahead of the competition... you can do as much as you want (mostly in your own time, though you can just work back the hours if you need to do it during the day) - Fair pay reviews... your pay reviews are 'fair' in that everyone tends to get the same kind of rises (or lack of them!) in the early stages of the company... this isn't always an advantage if you're a top performer - but if you just want to coast along it has a certain advantage. You also know that IBM uses a pretty fixed bell curve for performance monitoring, its hard but you know if you are PBC 1 you are top 5-7%, PBC2+ = next 10%, 2 (the majority) and 3 (cause for concern) is also around 10%, and 4 means that you are being told to get another job. - At the moment business is booming, IBM (in services) is having a very good time, over the past 2 years I've had 2 rises of around 10% (Been PBC1 = top performer) and a 10% bonus. This doesn't always happen I understand, but there is lots of work and IBM is doing well, which bodes well for future payrises despite a weaker economy - Brown-nosing isn't always the best way... yes... IBM seems to actively discourage brown-nosing, don't get me wrong, you have to get on well with your peers, but if you are actively perceived as brown nosing it will actually do you more harm than good - good news in my book! Now on to the part that depends on the business you work in - essentially you want (need!) to be working in a client facing role, otherwise IBM will occasionally decree that you can't travel ANYWHERE (near the end of a quarter or year), you will also be prevented from even buying a pencil (the infamous expenses freeze that seems to be a way of life now at Big Blue). However, as I work in services, and all my expenses are client billable, I get first class travel (train), or business (plane). I get complete freedom as to which hotels I stay in (As long as they are within reason), am not forced to live in a shared apartment etc (though IBM will give you money for flats on client sites if you would prefer it to living in a hotel collecting points).
Cons
- A lot of people dislike the paperwork required for promotions/professional ratings (I don't!) - but, if you can't articulate yourself well and explain why you deserve to get a promotion it ain't going to happen for a few more years. This brings around a general point about administration and paperwork... there is a lot of it. - Salary is also a bit of an issue, with most people feeling that the company provides poor (or no) raises to the majority of employees regularly - even when it tells Wall Street and the world it has been the best year ever. Also when you work at a company that only ever aims to pay the 'market average' salary it means you always know that you can switch to a competitor for a big raise - and this happens frequently which makes you wonder why you stay! - Remember earlier I mentioned the good things around travel... well, this is only when you aren't costing IBM money travelling - if you are internally charged you have to ask (beg) for permission to travel, get standard class and a bit less flexibility about hotels (though still a good choice) - but, this can be just taken away for months at a time to meet targets. - General poor morale: many people in the UK haven't had any payrise (or had less than 1-2%) for the past 5/6 years, it is starting to show in general discontent - Moving targets. At the start of each year you agree to a pre-set IBM target for what you are going to achieve this year, this generally focuses on a utilisation percentage, and other more wolly things. Unfortunately at the end of the year even if you meet all of these targets you are judged against everyone else, so that can mean you think you had a good year, and everyone else did even better so you don't get the rating you might want. - If you can't manage your manager give up. Pretty much everything at IBM is the responsibility of a people manager, this isn't the person you work for on a day-to-day basis, but rather a career manager. If you can't manage them well you won't get raises, promotions, training or anything else good. If you don't get on with your manager you are in trouble, so, make sure you have this skill or don't join IBM. The fact you are disconnected from them and they don't work with you on a day-to-day basis means you need to do a good job of 'advertising' your success to them, otherwise you won't do so well.
