IBM Training Employees To Leave IBM? 277
lucabrasi999 writes "IBM just launched a new program that will encourage some employees to earn teaching certificates and degrees. IBM will help defray the costs of these new degrees. With those newly earned degrees, the IBM employee would then become a 'former' IBM employee who moves onto a career as a public school math or science teacher. While it seems odd that IBM would encourage employees to switch careers, the point is that IBM is trying to help offset an expected shortage in the number of math and science teachers in the United States." From the article: "While many companies encourage their employees to tutor schoolchildren or do other things to get involved in education, IBM believes it is the first to guide workers toward switching into a teaching career. The company expects older workers nearing retirement to be the most likely candidates, partly because they would have more financial wherewithal to take the pay cut that becoming a teacher likely would entail."
PR (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PR (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:PR (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as you and I may fear it, today's generation is tommorow's work force, and a lot of that work will have to do with math and science. I know when I was in school, math and science classes seemed to be lacking, or sometimes more advanced classes weren't even available. This might not show an immediate success, but over time it could change a lot of people's minds about math and science and open a way for people who want to learn these subjects more.
Re:PR (Score:2)
And just "letting go" people nearing retirement would hurt their 'positive' image even more...
It depends (Score:2)
Re:PR (Score:2)
I think he understands that. What he's saying is that layoffs would be bad P.R., whereas this looks like service to the country.
Personally, I think it's a mixture. IBM sees that it could save money by reducing its workforce, doesn't want its stock to drop, and ALSO doesn't want to just toss its employees out on their butts. After all, many of those employees helped make IBM what it is today.
Not as dumb as they look (Score:2)
Just like in their battles with SCO, IBM manages to achieve a number of things at on
Re:Not as dumb as they look (Score:2)
Another reason to justify this... (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, this actually should accomplish a LOT for IBM.
The target is near-retirees, people that are leaving anyway.
1. If you lay them off, you risk a age-discrimination class-action suit (SCOTUS just allowed disparate affects in age discrimination, though the bar is set high).
2. If they join the public workforce, then they probably snap up the yummy government provided benefits, which gets them off IBM's benefits, at least until they retire from their new profession... Who knows, the ludicrous school retiree benefits may kick in in a short-enough time, that this may get some of the people off their benefits long term.
3. It NEVER hurts to have someone with a MAJORLY positive image of IBM teaching youngsters, the future's consumers and employees. IBM is an old established company, planning for 3 decades isn't unreasonable.
4. Brain Drain - if the person is going to retire soon anyway, you are losing their skill set. If you keep them on "leave of absence" for two years, you can pick their brain (even if not contracted to help, who wouldn't help their company that they were on leave for when called with a question). Also, if they moved into teaching with IBM's help, they are probably very happy with IBM, and may remain accessible for years helping people with arcane problems.
This looks like a HUGE win. IBM is able to do something good for the world, and there are enough plausible business benefits to justify it as a proper fiduciary activity.
Alex
Re:Another reason to justify this... (Score:4, Insightful)
We can add to this list based on demographic arguments:
Re:PR (Score:2)
Re:PR (Score:2)
I'd love it if my company offered to pay for my doctorate and said "here, go teach high school kids." (At least I'd love it in about 10 or 15 years, after I had more savings and no kid in college.)
This is a really, really smart program. Too bad my old IBM buddy retired two weeks ago -- I'd ask him if he'd heard about this program. I'll just have to ask his replacement.
Re:PR (Score:5, Insightful)
Schoolteachers with real-world work experience are very valuable.
Most teachers never... ever... left the school system.
Re:PR (Score:5, Insightful)
Less Stress??? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can't take as much stress, I don't think that teaching in a public school is the right move to make.
Re:Less Stress??? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think people are realizing exactly how burdensome bureaucratic the public school system is becoming. It's largely an issue of the ongoing means-testing of student bodies. Curricula is passing out of control of individuals and into overseer bodies. While some might believe this "enforces standards", it merely means the individual teacher becomes a functionary and a babysitter.
Re:Less Stress??? (Score:3, Insightful)
In college, they will not last long if they attempt to do a good job teaching classes and helping students learn the material. What makes a successful professor is research and publishing. "Publish or perish". Plus they have to play a bunch of stupid political games with the other profs and the administration. Being a college professor isn't some nice cushy job whe
Re:PR (Score:2)
Most teachers never... ever... left the school system.
That's because in K-12, the teachers' union has a lock. Only certified educators need apply. There was a recent proposal to bring in retired professionals to help alleviate the claimed teacher shortage. There was nothing but howls of outrage from the teachers and their handlers. Considering that some of my kids' teachers have been unable to spell or write a complete sentence, I don't see that the certification has much worth. That said, there are
Re:PR (Score:2)
But the strangest time was having an English teacher who later become our Computer Theory lecturer.
Maybe (Score:2)
Sponsoring individual students, however, is hit-or-miss and expensive. On the other hand, sponsoring a teacher (who may well have a class of anywhere between several dozen to several hundred) is cheap, efficient and much more likely to produce "good results" (in terms of useful employees).
My guess is that IBM is planning on pushing th
Re:Maybe (Score:2)
IMHO, the "ideal" in Europe would be for countries to specialize to some degree, so as to be competing more with other countries than between themselves. Competing within Europe is like a soccer team where the players on that team obstruct each other - they can't win that way.
When you specialize in this way, your "domestic" market essenti
Re:PR (Score:2)
...teaching is an influential position (Score:2)
1 IBM employee lost to teaching... 100s of possible customers at a rate of 30+/semester
Sounds pretty smart to me.
Re:Good PR But Not a Fundamental Solution (Score:2)
You are on the right track (Score:3, Interesting)
What is a problem is the distribution of that money. Essentially, these are the only two factors that matter in determining your pay in almost every district:
1: Highest degree earned
2: Number of years as a teacher
That it is. Nothing else matters. So some fresh new fool with a BA in communications from Directional State University an
Re:Good PR But Not a Fundamental Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
You want good teachers to stay in the profession? Make parents teach their children some manners. There is no way I would ever consider teaching, I wouldn't put up with those brats.
Random thought... (Score:5, Interesting)
With moves like this and their support of the open source scene, you'd think that they'd be Slashdot's new baby by now. :)
Re:Random thought... (Score:5, Funny)
Anyway, until they drive a stake through the heart of Lotus Notes they can't claim to have fully abandoned evil...
Re:Random thought... (Score:2)
Re:Random thought... (Score:2)
Re:Random thought... (Score:2)
I don't think 100 employees and trial phase really count as downsizing.
You're right about Notes, though.
Re:Random thought... (Score:5, Funny)
We're still recovering from Lotus Notes.
Re:Random thought... (Score:2)
We still have employees that use it. Well, Lotus 123. Same evil, different smell.
Re:Random thought... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Random thought... (Score:2)
Of course if IBM wants to be the nice guy, and help people get and hold new jobs, why shouldn't they get some respect for it.
Of course I will be keeping the other eye on them to make sure they don't become evil once again.
Just amazing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Teaching degree not 'advanced' (Score:2)
Re:Just amazing... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just amazing... (Score:2)
Well (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:2)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's precisely the idea. IBM figures if they "encourage" their most senior and skilled (read: most expensive) employees to go elsewhere, they can downsize without the PR unpleasantness of layoffs. It's the same logic as "early retirement" programs, but rather than buying out a contract you pay someone to go into teaching instead.
Frankly, IBM can have all the good PR they want from this move. Helping your employees to get another job before you fire them is great from a social responsibilty standpoint, and helping them into teaching, a field that always needs *experienced* people in it, is even better. Sure, IBM is doing it for primarily financial reasons but everyone wins in the end, so I'm perfectly fine with that.
Go IBM. (Score:5, Insightful)
I absolutely agree. (Score:2, Interesting)
Altruistic... (Score:5, Insightful)
You sound gullible. (Score:2, Interesting)
You've got to be kidding me if you're saying you believe that.
This will certainly lead to some happier employees.
This will certainly lead to LESS employees, which is what IBM wants.
But it can also lead to more college professors having IBM experience, which could lead to students better educated to work at IBM.
You don't want to work for IBM, trust me.
Not only does it help the industry, in the very long term it can c
Re:Altruistic... (Score:2)
Which makes it a shrewd investment, not altruism. Not to take the warm-and-fuzzy off of it, or anything... but that's exactly what I would expect and hope a company of that size to be keeping in mind. They need a prosperous, educated, technically savvy population for their business model to succeed, so they're taking steps to help shape that future. That other people will benefit in terms of their own quality of life i
Shortage (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Shortage (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure where you get your info, but a few weeks ago I met a handful of young IBM workers from their mainframe department. They each work in different teams and told me there are both young and old. There's simply an age gap due to the 10 years of not hiring in the NY state area. But there are plenty of young employees working on ancient systems. These weren't kids installing linux, either. They were talking Z/OS and encryption.
Just a cheaper way for early retirement (Score:2, Insightful)
This is really just a cost-cutting maneuver to encourage older employees to leave, similar to early retirement payouts.
Investing in the Future (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes, there's just no other choice. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes, there's just no other choice. (Score:2)
Why doesn't he just move? And how to you pronounce the word seven?
Re:Sometimes, there's just no other choice. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sometimes, there's just no other choice. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes, there's just no other choice. (Score:2)
While there is something to what you say, the flip side is that knowing your sh!t doesn't mean you'll know how to teach said sh!t
When I was in school, Education was the major you switched to when you were failing out of your original choice. I don't see how being unable to learn a subject makes one qualified to teach others. My point is that being an educator doesn't necessarily mean you can teach either (or that you have any mastery of subject material).
2 birds with 1 stone (Score:2)
We have approx 76 mln pre-k - 12 [answers.com] students in the US. Do we really need 250k math & science teachers?
Assume 1 teacher can teach 4 classes per year to 20 students per class and that means that 20mln students aren't getting the math & science education they need? over 1 in 4? wow!
Slight correction... (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly, I'm much more concerned about the quality of teachers than the amount of them. I would love to see more teachers come from industry instead of directly out of university.
Re:Slight correction... (Score:2)
My recollection of being an undergrad was that I didn't have to take math/science courses if I didn't choose to (i.e., liberal arts student). Are you saying that there are undergrads who want to take math/science course, but cannot due to a lack of teachers (note, this is not the same as not being able to get the afternoon class because one likes to sleep late).
Re:2 birds with 1 stone (Score:2)
In a country where almost half the teachers are coaches, this should not be surprising.
The first? (Score:4, Informative)
The DoD and DoE has had this for years.
Troops to Teachers [proudtoserveagain.com]
Still...not too shabby.
and if they were really smart... (Score:2, Interesting)
Surely they could afford to take some of their billions in annual profit and fund the new foundation. http://www.intltwins.org/ [intltwins.org]Twin, Triplet, or more?
Re:and if they were really smart... (Score:2)
Set it up as a non-profit with a mission statement something along the lines of `improving the state of science and engineering teaching' by providing a financial incentives to qualified engineers and scientists who go into teaching, and who stay in teaching. Then they can offset the donations against tax.
Question (Score:2)
Pay is the issue. (Score:4, Interesting)
The biggest issue is pay. K-12 teaching is a low-paid, low-status job, and in high school, it involves dealing with a lot of hassles from the 50% of the students who don't want to be there, and are just being warehoused by the government until they turn 18. Often the people who go into K-12 teaching are liberal arts majors who were mediocre students in college, and decided relatively late in the game to become teachers, because they weren't really qualified to do much else. For those people, the pay and job conditions might be OK, but people who are actually qualified to teach math or science have better options.
The effective government monopoly on education is preventing math and science teachers from being paid anything more in line with what they could get in a free market, and it also turns schools into assembly lines that produce students who pretend to have learned math and science, but actually couldn't calculate their way out of a paper sack. Part of the psychology of a government monopoly is to drag everybody down to the level of the lowest common denominator. Here, that means the lowest common denominator for both students and teachers.
Re:Pay is the issue. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Pay is the issue. (Score:2)
We live in a capitalist society. In a capitalist society, the value of a comm
Re:Pay is the issue. (Score:2)
Depends on the classes you end up teaching. My son is in four AP courses this year, and way more than half of those AP kids want to be in them (competition being what it is.) I suppose if you're stuck teaching remedial math or the "required-to-pass-the-grad-standards-Science-clas s " you're going to encounter a lot of unhappy kids. But if y
Re:Pay is the issue. (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps, but I think it depends on where you are in the US. In Portland, the biggest gripe I have heard from several teacher friends of mine is the fact that the union actively protects bad teachers. By bad, I mean incompetent, uncaring, and sometimes even openly racist or sexist. The whole circumstance is very demoralizing.
The other big issue my teacher friends have is the impressive amount of money devoted to standardized testing and bloated administration in Portland schools.
fitting... (Score:2)
Pretty fitting if you think about it. Earlier this year, IBM encouraged Apple to switch to Intel x86 based processors. Draw your own conclusion if that means the PowerPC series of chips is reaching its retirement years...
Too bad the Gov. won't step up like this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Now we're less educated than ever before.
The government could double the existing education budget and fix our school systems, get more teachers, and build the infrastructure that has been lost and not rebuilt for decades. There are plenty of places that we spend money that aren't as important.
At least IBM sees the crisis as it looms over us, if the government doesn't. An educated populace means there's a country worth defending, move a tiny portion of the defense budget to education, dammit!
Kudos, IBM. At least somebody has an eye on the ball.
Re:Too bad the Gov. won't step up like this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now we're less educated than ever before.
Almost all of those immigrant engineers have degrees from American universities and as long as the majority continue to settle here and become permanent residents, then they are us.
See through the smoke, people. (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is that IBM would like American and European labor to exit the company so they can pick up Indian and Chinese labor. They want us out, and they're trying to do it nicely.
There's no altruism here.
Pro outsourcing (Score:2)
Corporations make money by exploiting poor populations
Hold on there a minute, who exactly is being exploited by the evil corporations? You do realise that if they paid western wages to most of the people they employ in third world countries, it would put them in the top 1% of wage earners? Are their skills worth that?
And by the way, we are talking about employment here. These people have few prospects to better themselves, and are trapped in a vicious circle of desperate poverty the likes of which yo
I RTFA when it was posted in FRAK (Score:5, Informative)
IBM Wins, short term: Good karma, and reducing (somewhat) their headcount.
Employee wins: A new career, pursued while still having IBM benefits (like health plan) and partial salary, because they will be in a leave of absence.
IBM wins, long term: Continuin g supply of skilled workforce
Society wins: Teachers.
This is a sort of thing that companies have been doing for a lon time, but this is a very innovative way for them to do it... kudos to IBM.
In Venezuela we dub this "La cajita feliz" (the happy meal, a reference to McDonalds kids lunch). When you offer incentives to the employees to leave on their own will, therefore reducing headcount without layoffs.
Our PTT, CANTV, did this. In HP now, to reach their staffing targets, they anounced a change of the early retirement policy, and many employees arte taking advantage before the deadline, so, in the end, they will reduce the workforce by some number X of employees, but they will have laid off a number less than x, the others leaving on their own volition....
No News Here... (Score:2)
it could be bigger (Score:2, Interesting)
Summary is Misleading (Score:2)
It wouldn't make sense that IBM would ask their most productive workers to leave work. They just want the deadwood out.
Sounds like the company is trying to... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Sounds like the company is trying to... (Score:2)
Doesn't this affect their Social Security benefits (Score:2)
Re:Doesn't this affect their Social Security benef (Score:2)
Yeah, they're not going to get a livable wage from the school's retirement fund, and they know that. Most of the retiring IBMmers I know (mid 50s) already have pretty nice pensions and retirement packages set up f
public service (Score:2)
Why does this remind me of the Peace Corps? E.g., I wonder if the new science teachers will be warned of the hazards of certain public schools... or state legislatures...
I wouldn't do it. (Score:2)
So you get school superintendents that get paid 70k, school principals that get paid 50k, and teachers that get paid 20-30k. A dual-teaching-income house in the
As the Devil's Advocate (Score:2)
It may well be that those who can manage grade school sciences will do so no matter the number of teachers available.
As a society we may benefit more by making math & science teachers available to those few who show the ability and willingne
They've been doing this for years. (Score:2)
(Psst, hey IBM! I would have stayed for the mere price of a modest raise the last two years I was there. You know, something better than 0.0%. Hm, no raise when you work in the most profitable division of the company? Why should I have stayed?)
Cuo Buono? (Score:2)
One thing this does for IBM, however, is to reduce the average cost of an employee. Hiring fresh grads, or the barely experienced, is much cheaper than retaining the high-paid dinosaurs.
If IBM can slowly trim the high-paid of its workforce with good feelings on both sides, wonderful.
Fucking great idea! (Score:2)
For Shame (Score:2)
"Likely" pay cut? (Score:2)
When I was in college, I got a secondary education ("high school") degree in addition to my computer science major. Throughout most of my schooling, I assumed that I would end up as a teacher rather than a software developer. In fact, it wasn't until I did
Question on the market for teachers (Score:2)
What is the science teacher market, these days like in the US? Any chance for fairly fluent, but non-native speakers of English?
Bert
If they really wanted... (Score:2)
No more math teachers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No more math teachers (Score:2)
Apparently, you do.
Oh no!! (Score:2)
Paying teachers (Score:2)
It's a great way to speed up attrition (Score:2)
By far the most honorable practice I could witness (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, you can expect their stock values to decline because we all know that doing 'good things' is a waste of resources and drains profit potential... and we all know profit is everything right?
Re:So we can teach the H1-Bs kids !!! (Score:2, Informative)