Company: IBM
Date: 2014-06-12
Overall rating: 3/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Senior

The Archetypal Large Company - Good and Bad
Pros: Top brand name with plenty of scope for career advancement if your face fits.
Can be good for flexible working.
Since Ginny came along management have been more visible and  in recent months some have actually started sounding like leaders who know what they are talking about.
Cons: The performance review system has evolved to a state where it demonstrates all that can be bad about HR in large companies - process over people, boilerplate objectives and a management star-chamber to separate the sheep from the goats.  Once combined with a 'winner takes all' attitude to remuneration, it motivates only the extremes - the very top (or top perceived) performers and those who want to secure themselves a voluntary redundancy payoff. For the vast majority there is little connection between even a below inflation pay rise and the annual performance ranking.

At the end of 2013, the board fed a news story that the senior executives had foregone their bonuses due to not meeting targets - in fact, bonuses where scrapped for all but the very top ranked employees (who presumably had performed just right but were let down by the rest).  In fact, UK HR practice hasn't come out looking too good when exposed to the light of day and a critical eye (ref judge's report from recent UK Pensions court case). Tendency to renege on promises - so proceed with caution and get anything important signed in writing.

Career progression depends on who you know. You must manage upwards. Failing this, getting a job offer at a critical time will likely work better for you than following the bureaucratic 'career' processes.

Overall, the effect is that when push comes to shove, individual competition wins out over a team.