Blogs are providing an unprecedented look inside organizations in the Internet age. Via blogs run by current and former employees and associates we can now see aspects of major technology companies that otherwise would only be visible to a few insiders. While it is fun to position these companies against one another for sport. Looking at the historic difficulties these firms have experienced, they’ve often proven to be their own worst enemies.
One of the worst aspects of today's IBM is that its processes seem almost deliberately designed to ensure that IBMers inflict more pain on each other than on IBM's competitors. Take the annual evaluation process where managers are now mandated to allocate a certain proportion of employees a '3' grade. Get two of those in a row and you're out. At the same time, the pressure is on managers to do these evaluations in an increasingly slapdash way. So there is an increasing number of injustices. The company's pension changes are also pitting IBMer against IBMer. The long-termers are unhappy because their pensions are being eroded and they think things are going to get worse. But the newer IBMers are also unhappy because it's now clear to them how much worse their own pension prospects are, compared even to the Ts and Cs of the long-termers' revised pension deals. The sad fact is that a. IBM HR is now measured largely on employee costs, and b. whenever IBM Finance devises another scheme to hit the employees' pockets, it never allows for the possibility that declining morale might lead to declining sales.
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Comparing Google, Microsoft to Netscape, IBM and Predicting Legal ‘Piracy’
Posted by: Rob Enderle March 20, 2006 05:00 AMBlogs are providing an unprecedented look inside organizations in the Internet age. Via blogs run by current and former employees and associates we can now see aspects of major technology companies that otherwise would only be visible to a few insiders. While it is fun to position these companies against one another for sport. Looking at the historic difficulties these firms have experienced, they’ve often proven to be their own worst enemies.
Take the annual evaluation process where managers are now mandated to allocate a certain proportion of employees a '3' grade. Get two of those in a row and you're out. At the same time, the pressure is on managers to do these evaluations in an increasingly slapdash way. So there is an increasing number of injustices.
The company's pension changes are also pitting IBMer against IBMer. The long-termers are unhappy because their pensions are being eroded and they think things are going to get worse. But the newer IBMers are also unhappy because it's now clear to them how much worse their own pension prospects are, compared even to the Ts and Cs of the long-termers' revised pension deals.
The sad fact is that a. IBM HR is now measured largely on employee costs, and b. whenever IBM Finance devises another scheme to hit the employees' pockets, it never allows for the possibility that declining morale might lead to declining sales.