Anatomy Of A Layoff: How IBM Is Likely To Spin This Week's Force Reduction

IBMdoesnt like me.After mycolumn last weekpredicting massive cuts at the giant computer company,IBMnow says Im wrong, and that there will be nowhere near 110,000IBMemployees laid off. But like my young sons who never hit each other but instead push, slap, graze, or brush, I thinkIBMis dissembling, fixating on the term110,000 layoffs, which by the way I never used.Whatever the word, what counts is how many fewer people will be paid byIBMon March 1 compared to today.

There are many ways to spin a work force reduction. Heres how oneIBMersource (I have dozens) explained the tricksto me this morning:

If youre following the Endicott Alliance discussion board (an organization ofIBMworkers) you know that they are only officially laying off several thousand (maybe 12K Im guessing), but others are being pushed out by being given poor performance ratings. This includes people on their bridge to retirement program that took that option, thinking it kept them safe from resource actions (layoffs/firings). There is a loophole that says they can be dismissed for performance reasons, which is exactly why many of my long-time, devoted, hard working peers are suddenly getting the worst rating, a 3. Its so they can be dismissed without any separation package and no hit to the RA, or workforce rebalancing, fund It used to be something like 10 percent of employees had to be labeled 3s, but recently the required number of 3s was way, way upped according to some managers. So thats how they are doing it Some managers have teams of hard working people that put in tons of overtime and do everything they are asked, and by requirement some must be given 1s, some 2+, some 2, and unfortunately some 3s They also got rid of some employees by stuffing them into theLenovox86 acquisition, shipping tons of people over there that never even worked on x86 stuff.Lenovohas discovered this and has given some of them a way better package (year salary and benefits), and taking it up quietly with IBM.

The company has a bad year, so what do you do?Throw a large number of employees under the bus. By any measure this will be a big staff reduction.

Another source told me the plan was to give the people notice before January 28th so they would be off the books by the end of February one month.That implies a lot offirings, offshore staff reductions, contractors released or strongly motivated early retirements.None of those are layoffs.There will probably be lots of normal layoffs, too, with the required notice.Im told that senior managers throughout IBM have been pleading for the last few months with higher-up executives not to go through with this because of the risk of consequences such as IBM breaking accounts or failing to meet contract obligations. IBMs customers are going to be the biggest casualty to this weeks staff reductions.That is the message IBM is likely trying to avoid.

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Anatomy Of A Layoff: How IBM Is Likely To Spin This Week's Force Reduction