Working at International Business Machines (IBM) Corp. - Page 3

Work life balance depends on the cycle of the product being worked on. Sometimes you will have ample time to yourself, other times you will be expected to work 80+ hours a week (both examples can go for 6+ months at a time). 401k matching is good, but the stock program is horrendous. Healthplans are either really poor compared to industry or insanely expensive. Management is generally clueless to what many of the employees are actually doing.

Excellent employee benefits and employee support. As with any public company though there always seems to be some cloud of company wide lay offs hanging over your head. Also, being a very large corporation it is really hard to feel connected to the company goals, as they shift with the constantly reorganizing executive shuffles. This tends to be hidden behind a vague pep-squad sentiment within the culture that rings false for the most part. A seemingly desperate attempt to be seen as a positive team player so you will not be caught up in the next corporate wide lay off. I am not sure if this is unique to IBM or simply a culture that is punch drunk from yearly lay offs. There are a lot of good people here. The long term IBMers have a sincere love of the company, well earned through the benefits. They also tend be insulated in their experiences, not having a lot of insight into how smaller companies operate.

Overall my experience at IBM was very good. I would say that communication between executives / management / employees could be improved, up and down. Communication was superficial and it seemed that "real" objectives were held back. Everything seemed to be a secret. Only favorites or folks that were "in the know" or gossipers tended to know what was going on. If you are a hard worker doing your job consistently, then you seemed to be on the outside and forced to act like you didn't care. Another thing is, while there was plenty of education and classes to take free, there was very little time to take advantage of it. You ended up having to make a choice between multitasking or to not do work so you can actually try to learn. Work life balance is ok but could stand some improvement depending upon what organization you work. But overall my experience in 20 years has been very good. Culturally IBM is good. It has a good reputation in the world still. They are injecting younger people intentionally to get the much needed relevancy IBM needs. Diversity at IBM is a very surprising plus. IBM intentionally tries to make sure they hire, whites, blacks, hispanics, asians and even people with disabilities. Its a very professional and positive company to work for overall.