IBM Scraps Rewards Program For Staff Inventions, Wipes Away Cash Points (theregister.com) 43
Thomas Claburn reports via The Register: IBM has canceled a program that rewarded inventors at Big Blue for patents or publications, leaving some angry that they are missing out on potential bonuses. By cancelling the scheme, a source told The Register, IBM has eliminated a financial liability by voiding the accrued, unredeemed credits issued to program participants which could have been converted into potential cash awards. For years, IBM has sponsored an "Invention Achievement Award Plan" to incentivize employee innovation. In exchange for filing patents, or for publishing articles that served as defense against rival patents, IBM staff were awarded points that led to recognition and potentially cash bonuses. According to documentation seen by The Register, "Invention points are awarded to all inventors listed on a successful disclosure submission."
One point was awarded for publishing. Three points were awarded for filing a patent or four if the filing was deemed high value. For accruing 12 points, program participants would get a payout. "Inventors reach an invention plateau for every 12 points they achieve -- which must include at least one file decision," the rules state. And for each plateau achieved, IBM would pay its inventors $1,200 in recognition of their efforts. No longer, it seems. IBM canceled the program at the end of 2023 and replaced it with a new one that uses a different, incompatible point system called BluePoints.
"The previous Invention Achievement Award Plan will be sunset at midnight (eastern time) on December 31st, 2023," company FAQs explain. "Since Plateau awards are one of the items being sunset, plateau levels must be obtained on or before December 31, 2023 to be eligible for the award. Any existing plateau points that have not been applied will not be converted to BluePoints." We're told that IBM's invention review process could take months, meaning that employees just didn't have time between the announcement and the program sunset to pursue the next plateau and cash out. Those involved in the program evidently were none too pleased by the points grab. "My opinion...the invention award program was buggered a long time [ago]," said a former IBM employee. "It rewarded words on a page instead of true innovation. [Former CEO] Ginni [Rometty] made it worse by advocating the program to fluff up young egos."
One point was awarded for publishing. Three points were awarded for filing a patent or four if the filing was deemed high value. For accruing 12 points, program participants would get a payout. "Inventors reach an invention plateau for every 12 points they achieve -- which must include at least one file decision," the rules state. And for each plateau achieved, IBM would pay its inventors $1,200 in recognition of their efforts. No longer, it seems. IBM canceled the program at the end of 2023 and replaced it with a new one that uses a different, incompatible point system called BluePoints.
"The previous Invention Achievement Award Plan will be sunset at midnight (eastern time) on December 31st, 2023," company FAQs explain. "Since Plateau awards are one of the items being sunset, plateau levels must be obtained on or before December 31, 2023 to be eligible for the award. Any existing plateau points that have not been applied will not be converted to BluePoints." We're told that IBM's invention review process could take months, meaning that employees just didn't have time between the announcement and the program sunset to pursue the next plateau and cash out. Those involved in the program evidently were none too pleased by the points grab. "My opinion...the invention award program was buggered a long time [ago]," said a former IBM employee. "It rewarded words on a page instead of true innovation. [Former CEO] Ginni [Rometty] made it worse by advocating the program to fluff up young egos."
Executive leadership at IBM (Score:2)
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Been the IBM way for 30 years at least.
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Perfect example... (Score:4, Insightful)
of MBA cost-cutting indicating an abandonment of innovation
This is best demonstrated in mature companies that sit on applications with no new features, but high licensing and support fees
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The problem with bonuses (Score:5, Interesting)
https://hbr.org/1993/09/why-in... [hbr.org]
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That's true.
When I worked for a certain 4 letter company, they always had these absurd reward programs, but the amount of lie-cheat-and-steal you'd have to do to customers to get those kinds of KPI's was dishonest as hell. Same with the second 4-letter company.
In fact I'd say the second 4-letter company was even more dishonest about KPI fudging. There there was nothing to "sell" to the customer, you fudge KPI's by cherry picking cases, and bulk taking down bad data. Sucks to be you if you were in a departme
I got some IBM patent payout money (Score:4, Interesting)
At the time I left 3 years ago, IBM was basically telling their employees "Whatever you think up, if you think it's patentable, submit it." I heard a horror story of someone on the team in charge of the program, where she came up with an idea on the spot during a webinar she was running on it, and submitted it to the program on the spot, as a demo.
One of my 2 IBM patents was a valid (if software) patent for something innovative I came up with and that ended up in a product. One was something I came up with in an hour, wrote up, and eventually got accepted by the USPTO. I had left by then, so I didn't get my $1,200 for it.
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I've always thought that patents should be exponential in cost to own.
1st patent $100/year
10th patent $1k/year/patent
100th patent $10k/yr/patent
etc etc
Re:I got some IBM patent payout money (Score:4)
It doesn't cost much to create holding companies.
Also, your proposed scheme is linear, not exponential.
Did Not Used To Be Screwed Up Like This (Score:3)
IBM used to a company that people WANTED to work for, but that was back in the 1960s, 1970s, declining into the 1980s as business performance started to sour.
Back in the 1960s the Employee Reward Program was nice. If your invention/creation was truly important to the company you could see a nice promotion in your future, maybe a company move, possibly a very nice award amount & beautiful award "trophy". I know cuz I seen that stuff personally at the next door neighbor's house when my buddy would invite me inside; we were young back then. His Dad won a big award that included a nice heavy crystal commemorative "object" that we were not supposed to touch (snicker snicker).
I do agree that Ginny Rometty changed things at IBM, and not always good changes. She annoyed a lot of the "traditional" IBM-ers in the rank & file. And not because she was a woman in a traditionally male job at IBM. Her ideas and directions were simply "different" and did not fit the existing culture.
The current management is not much better, especially since IBM merged with RedHat. The culture & employee motivations are VERY DIFFERENT than those that once made IBM a great place.
I have met some of the modern day IBM-ers in some of my past jobs and their attitudes & ethics are quite different (more short term "bottom line" oriented) from my friend's Dad who I knew quite well (who was more long-term success oriented).
So the comment about today's IBM acting more like or becoming a private equity owned firm seems about right.
I can see it now: IBM becomes a subsidiary of India's TATA Group or maybe Reliance Industries.
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I think that Broadcom has become the primary grave-robber tech company since it swallowed up Computer Associates
Innovation! (Score:3)
Now, with Watson just-screw-the-employees technology IBM has demonstrated a bold path forward: just make it real clear that whatever measure you are treating as a target might actually result in no rewards whatsoever; so it's not worth gaming!
New IBM slogan (Score:4, Funny)
Thought — ie past tense, like IBM's glory days.
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Why would anyone work for IBM these days? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Why would anyone work for IBM these days? (Score:3)
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Seriously, it there was ever a failing company, IBM is it.
The $153bn company with a share price not far off it's record high? I wish I could fail like that.
IBM is a lot of things, but they haven't yet and aren't about to show up in a bankruptcy filing. There's lots of ways to describe IBM, unethical, overpriced, incompetent, but the one thing they aren't is failing.
Re: Why would anyone work for IBM these days? (Score:3)
As an employer, they are doing pretty poorly as of late.
Between my experience and talking with people after I left, I've seen:
Base compensation going lower And lower compared to the market rate. At one point they "fixed" this by putting their idea of "competitive market rate" during reviews, hoping you'll trust that over the actual offers employees were getting.
A cash bonus program that was pretty stingy at its most generous, but unreliable as they seemed to decide their bonus calculation after the year fi
People have been saying IBM is dying for decades (Score:2)
I've been hearing people say IBM is irrelevant and dying since the late '90s, but they somehow manage to keep bumbling along. They've left the markets for printers, consumer PCs (desktops and notebooks), x86 servers, and lots of other things. But they keep refusing to actually become insolvent. I'll believe IBM is dying when they file for bankruptcy.
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Indeed. Talked to a "pro web team" in the big data area from IBM a few years ago because I was designing and implementing an internal security proxy for a rather large bank. After the first meeting, me and my internal project lead decided to not have any more meetings with these clowns. Two years later they had been thrown out of production several times directly after gong live (about the worst level of screw up you can have in that type of environment) because their data tap created massive problems. And
Quality of Quantity (Score:2)
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My place rewards *licenced* patents. They don't care about the quantity you file or get approved, only those that make a profit.
Points are a diversionary tactic (Score:3)
First, points for patent and paper bonuses are like points for credit cards. Their main purpose is to make it harder to calculate the real value of the reward.
Second, the IBM reward for patents looks really tiny. Essentially $300 per patent is a miniscule amount. Even for the cheap companies I worked for, the amount has never been less than $1000, payable in cash.
Third, requiring the pooling of points to earn a reward implies that they don't really want to give you a reward because they expect fragmentation of pooled points to lead to unredeemed points.
Not surprisingly IBM's issued patents have decreased over the last three years, from 8681 to 4398 to 3953 (in 2023).
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Even for the cheap companies I worked for, the amount has never been less than $1000, payable in cash.
Yeah but you probably file actual patents rather than the worthless bullshit IBM churns out. Their patents aren't even worth $300. At its peak they were filing 10000 patents a year. And this is a company that objectively targets a single industry within the tech sector. It's absurd to think they are currently the second biggest filer in the world. At least Samsung (currently number 1) is a company with actual meaningful R&D and applied science work covering a multitude of products and services in over 1
Wait wut? (Score:2)
I find it VERY difficult to believe that there’s a single IBM employee who actually gives a rats ass about that. And I seriously doubt that IBM executives care about the money savings that comes from cancelli
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That's $100 more than I ever got for a paper, and the patents were only rewarded with more work.
I've never gotten a tootsie roll after a marathon. Usually it's a granola bar and some juice. There was one race in Finland where they had soup though.
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IT is called "recognition" and for the people that can do these things, it is worth far more than the money is. Nobody money-focussed ever invented anything of real worth.
Good luck with this... (Score:2)
And the downward spiral continues (Score:2)
They were already crap in many fields a decade ago. Not thy just make sure to be crap in everything they do.
Utility patents are way undervalued till needed (Score:2)
Most of these patents are expensive to prosecute and require reasonably smart attorneys to clean up and make more generalized and enforceable. The sad truth is that one in thousands is really worth anything ever and even then it is usually trumped up garbage like billions in tech. Most licenses in sane and normal industries are around 7% revenue for critical knowledge or processes. In more mechanical/industrial/chemical businesses patents are mostly design and are regular well rewarded and accounted. He
That rewards program was a joke to start with.... (Score:2)
IBM didn't think this would make the news (Score:3)
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I bet it was some bean counter who pointed out the accounting liabilities they need to keep on the books for the unredeemed points. They suggested they just erase all of them, effectively removing the liability from the company books.
And this is the problem with any "points" system. Even if at some point they are directly redeemable for cash, there's no guarantee they will be in the future so unless you can turn them into cash straight away they're effectively worthless and no system will do that as it's a guaranteed loss maker.
The way they've hidden this is via gamification, points, miles nights, whatever, they've convinced people to convince themselves that they're getting something for free (they haven't, TANSTAAFL). However despi
Quit, Please (Score:2)
> Any existing plateau points that have not been applied will not be converted to BluePoints.
It's not the $1200 it's the abuse intended to get employees to quit so they are easily replaced in India.
Sadly, supporting Redhat these days is enabing this and worse.
rm -rf rpmbuild/
What, they didnâ(TM)t switch to a Jelly of th (Score:1)
I'm so sick of bean counters (Score:2)
I know it's wrong, but it would do my old heart good if I were to read a news story about some company that promised rewards to employees who over-performed, then gouged back the promised benefits...and the bean-counting HR drone who sold the ripoff to his superiors was summarily dragged out to the parking lot and beaten within an inch of his life.
Yes, I know this is just wish fulfillment, and that it wouldn't be some grand statement about justice. I'd simply like it if once in a while scumbags who climb t