Company: IBM
Date: 2009-01-19
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current

It's Not Your Father's IBM
Pros: IBM used to be a great company to work for and is still known as having skilled employees.  IBM has been very good regarding working from home and working flexible hours around personal needs.
Cons: The last 5-6 years pay increases for experienced, high-performing, staff engineers have not kept up with the dollar increases in the cost of health insurance premiums IBM has passed on to employees.  IBM used to be known as a family-friendly company by providing good benefit coverages for families of employees.  In the last decade, IBM has shifted the burden of providing insurance benefits for employees' spouses and dependents to the employees without increasing the pay to compensate for the added costs.  Compensation and benefit plans are geared toward bringing in young, single, employees at competitive starting salaries who generally only last a few years, while ignoring the dependable, experienced, knowledgeable employees who become stuck in the position of perpetually training the new kids who either wash out or are put on the fast-track ahead of the gray-hairs.  The employees who are the backbone of IBM are unappreciated, but often have no choice about leaving because they do not want to uproot their families.