above avg rate for deskside support - Desktop Support IBM Employee Review

4.0
12 Oct 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This is for what we call Supplementals 12month contract with 6 month extension....read the CON first Now, once you've proven yourself that you can keep scheds, have good feedback from the "lead" on whatever project and also have a few jobs involving subbing for a Deskside person going to vaca, they will ask you if you want a steady 40hr position and be a perm deskside. that's what im doing now, ive completed the initial 12 months, gave me a 6month ext, the client i work for doing support gave back positive feedback and im doing a 3yr supplemental contract now. once you get 3yrs, which is a bit rare for most Supplementals, you'll get the full benefits package with 401k and health. my manager is pretty easy going, 98% hands off, lets me work and just emails me a few times a month. so i do like the job...though now...a few yrs of doing deskside support...of course im aiming to go higher including the pay rate...ill take advantage of the free microsoft cert training theyve got and will ask to be a regular IBMer

Cons

i thought i was going to start doing deskside support right away but nope, you start off doing ad-hoc stuff. installing POS for clients, doing servers, networks (add/move/change). many late nights and early mornings. hours were sort of up and down, one week id be doing 45-50hrs, another 4-8 initially. my very first job was offsite to work with a group of ppl ive never met and install POS. lol i had no exp with POS, but i was good with comp hardware so its was pretty easy, but i felt like being thrown straight to the fire, all good it was my highest paying job as a 18yr old

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12 May 2026
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4.0
26 Aug 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Disclaimer: A lot of what I'm writing below of course depends on the work area and management chain. But I found this to be fairly pervasive policies in IBM in my 9+ years with the company. 1. IBM's policies and management are very flexible when it comes to working remotely or accommodating various life situations (sick days, doctor visits, etc.). Management is encouraged to measure an employee by their work and impact, and not by hours spent at their office. 2. Great colleagues! Though unfortunately, many have been leaving due to the instability of IBM's HW development business. 3. At least in my area, there's a high level of flexibility on which projects should I undertake based on my and my management assessment of business impact.

Cons

1. Unfortunately, IBM still uses the "normal distribution" rating system, where at the end of the year each employee is ranked as a top contributor (5%), above average contributor (15%), average contributor (~75%), and bottom contributor (5%). This curve is difficult to apply in the R&D world, where you may have many members of the team working long and hard hours, and end up being "average contributors" at the end of the year, because there just isn't room for all to be top contributors. 2. The above may not be so disturbing, if only IBM didn't practically cancelled all raises, performance bonuses and incentive for the non top-performers. I've had a consistent "above average" rating in the last 4-5 years, and my raise and performance bonus were ridiculous mere 1.5-2% of my salary. Were I rated "average contributor" I would have gotten NOTHING. So you can imagine that people can go year after year without any raise to their salary. From talking to manager friend, this is IBM's way to eliminate the non-top-performers without having to fire them, as part of its direction of reducing US manpower. 3. Hiring freeze in many areas - again, as part of IBM's attempt to reduce its workforce across North America and Europe we see many jobs move to the India and Far East markets. This is of course upsetting to see local teams shrink and disappear, especially when many great local IBM colleagues and experts begin to drop out. From my experience thus far working with India SW teams - they are still very far away from the standards I would have expected from US and Europe based teams. 4. Poor top down communication about company's and divisions' future. Employees learn from rumors and news websites what's about to come...

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IBM Response
10y
Thanks for sharing your experience, and we're glad that you've had a positive experience working with talented colleagues and taking advantage of IBM's programs. IBM is in the midst of a major transformation, --our Systems business is going through its own changes to strengthen competitiveness. Change is never easy. As part of our transformation, we just launched a whole new approach for how we are coaching employees, delivering feedback and managing reviews. No distribution guidelines or what some think of as 'stacked rankings." What's particularly great is that this was co-designed with our employee base from all over the world... to the tune of hundreds of thousands of page views, comments, on-line debates and discussions. IBMers even named the new system Checkpoint, to reflect the regular feedback rituals we're adopting. Managers are more empowered with the new methodology to help them acknowledge the great work of their teams and help their employees develop professionally. These steps and more are showing up in our employee surveys as well. So IBMers are feeling the change. We are confident these changes will help us in continuing to attract and retain great talent.
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