I've Been Moved: IBMers in same division slapped with 2nd redundo scheme in 2 months

Deathly Hallows Mark ii

IBM UK appears to have fired the starting gun on a 2.0 redundancy programme for the Infrastructure Services Delivery division – before the first one has even concluded.

Employees were given around an hour’s notice yesterday to join a mandatory call hosted by Deathly Debbie Hallows, veep of ISD for the UK and Ireland in which she spoke at them briefly to confirm the fresh round of cuts.

“[It is] voluntary at this stage but if not enough offers [are forthcoming] then it will move to involuntary. Bare legal minimum again. It was a listen-only call, no questions, and lasted for a grand total of five minutes. She read from a script,” an IBMer told The Reg.

A deadline of midday on Monday 27 March was set for people to express an interest in leaving voluntarily, an IBM document confirmed. The consultation for Project "Ruby" will last for 30 days, so between 20 and 99 people heads will roll.

Concurrently, IBM is also running Project Baccarat: the first ISD voluntary redundancy scheme launched in February which has now moved to a compulsory basis, though people have to discover if the spotlight has fallen on them.

“We are in a situation where we have Baccarat running and you might be made redundant but we don’t yet know. At the same time, we are being asked to put ourselves forward for the latest voluntary scheme,” a source said.

“You can ask your manager who tells you they have no information about the new programme or Baccarat… So ANOTHER swing of the axe before the bloodletting from the first swing has even finished spurting out,” the source added in an email.

The word at the water coolers in the office of Big Blue is that management in other EU countries - where employment law is tougher - pushed back on the cuts so UK execs were asked to raise their targets. This is unconfirmed by IBM.

IBM is desperate to cut overheads, and is working toward a blueprint of offshoring eight in 10 services staff to lower cost locations, internal documents seen by El Reg a year ago confirmed.

Staff now jokingly refer to the company as I’ve Been Moved. ®