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This disclosure helps fired employees determine if they have an age-discrimination case, and it's required by U.S. federal law for workers over 40 if a company wants the person to agree not to file such a lawsuit. Now IBM is withholding the information, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. It's avoiding the disclosure requirement by offering workers the option of bringing claims in arbitration.
This disclosure helps fired employees determine if they have an age-discrimination case, and it's required by U.S. federal law for workers over 40 if a company wants the person to agree not to file such a lawsuit. Now IBM is withholding the information, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. It's avoiding the disclosure requirement by offering workers the option of bringing claims in arbitration.
"It's part of a long trend, a 30-year trend, of reducing the rights of workers," Eisenbrey, who focuses on labor and employment law, said in an interview from Washington. "It's just a symptom of the increased bargaining power that employers have over workers." ...
Under the old approach, fired employees had two options: accept severance pay and give up all age-discrimination claims, or reject the severance offer and preserve the right to pursue legal claims.
Now, IBM doesn't have to disclose the age and title data of co-workers in a group layoff because it's no longer asking fired employees to agree not to take any legal action at all. ...
Workers 40 years and older are protected by the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, which was passed by Congress in 1990 to amend the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. If a company fires two or more workers and asks them to waive age discrimination claims in exchange for a benefit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations require the contract to be "knowing and voluntary."
That means the information should be easy to understand, refer to specific age-discrimination claims, give the employees at least 45 days to consider the waiver and encourage them to seek legal counsel. It also must include eligibility factors, plus titles and ages of the group of workers considered for the layoff, including those who were fired and those who weren't. ...
While IBM's new approach gives employees a way to pursue discrimination claims and still get severance pay, it also provides them with less information to potentially build a case for wrongful dismissal, according to Mark Carta, a lawyer whose client was awarded about $2.5 million this year in an age-discrimination trial against IBM. That, in turn, could help the company cut down on such claims. ...
"It's a new twist," said Carta, who works at Carta, McAlister & Moore LLC in Darien, Connecticut. "A company like IBM can just wear you down. It's a way for them to control their cost and avoid exposure to a jury." ...
Carta said he hasn't seen the use of a mandatory arbitration provision in severance agreements at other companies.
IBM, with more than 430,000 employees worldwide, has been seen as an early mover in employee-benefits changes, said Marcia Wagner, founder of the Wagner Law Group in Boston. It could be setting precedent for other companies once again.
"They are a thought leader in this industry, and they are pushing the envelope," she said. IBM's changes in the waivers make "sense from a risk-mitigation standpoint. I think it's going to be more prevalent." ...
By diverting claims to arbitration, IBM keeps the bulk of the proceedings out of court records and away from the public eye. Also, federal law makes it difficult for an arbitrator's decision to be reversed, except in narrow instances.
Workers in employment discrimination cases win against their employers about 21 percent of the time in arbitration cases, less than the 36 percent win rate in federal court, according to a Cornell University study that analyzed 1,213 arbitration cases from 2003 to 2007. These statistics didn't include cases that were settled, which is about 59 percent of arbitration cases and 70 percent for litigation.
IBM is encouraging disgruntled employees to first raise concerns through its in-house mediation program, called the Open Door process, before initiating arbitration. ...
There's an added benefit for IBM to keep layoff information out of the hands of fired employees. It makes it difficult for the public to determine how many jobs are being eliminated. IBM has said it doesn't publicly discuss the details of staffing plans given the "competitive nature" of its industry.
Selected reader comments follow:
Then Gerstner got in there, and now they don't know when to stop. They've cut to the bone and they continue to move to management which only knows marketing (and not the I/T business they supposedly manage), and they make constant cutting a way to make short term profits look better.
Not much of a business model. Of course, when you're looking to make profits appear better next quarter, instead of having the best products and services a decade or three down the line -- your actions can be different.
Companies today need to find a reasonable balance in a VERY competitive world. IBM lost its ability to do that in the 80's, and its been downhill ever since.
Has anyone looked at their Form-4 filings? Complete pillaging, hundreds of millions being taken out while they continue to build more debt on leverage for share buybacks. IIRC, IBM is a stateless corporation for tax purposes as well, how nice that their political graft is allowed to tax evade so easily, they paid well. Also not mentioned here is their fight with The BLS/government regarding mass layoffs (WARN Act) stating that divulging the mass layoff notice might hurt them financially and should remain secret. Brilliant.
Those older folks being kicked off the IBM ship don't have life jackets. The 40 and under 60 demographic are going to be wiped out as they will never be compensated at their current castoff levels into the economic abyss. Considering Americans net household income is still in free fall, while costs to live climbs, I have to question what it will take for The People to take out their vengeance on the very people destroying them - on purpose. If you're of the older ilk, it's most likely too late for you, as you're too weak emotionally, physically and financially to put up any kind of fight.
Welcome to the "new normal", where the country we inherited is squandered and pillaged.
My hypothesis has always been that these layoffs achieve two goals — they funnel retirement dollars into the executive pension plan that Gertsner created (before this, everyone was in the same plan) and they help mask IBM's true financial results when M&As don't deliver the numbers they want. It's all about numbers for Wall St, not about employees ... or even customers.
They really screwed all the old timers big time. The average engineer that say joined IBM in the late 80's or early 90's are the one that get hurt the most. Not only a lot of them get lay off but the one that are still there have lost at least $500,000 due to cut backs in their pay and benefits. Just the elimination of the defined retirement plan would have cost them about $350,000.
And, if challenged, blame outdated skills or performance of older employees, and add a few "phantom" employees to the layoff rosters for meet EEO. This has been happening since the 1980's — and continues month in and month out. The entire size of the US job market in software is only 3.5 million while this nation currently has nearly two million temporary foreign workers.
Anyone with any doubts need only walk into the IT department of any large corporation. And coming soon to the balance of engineering, nursing, teaching, chemists, dentists, doctors, etc. No one should have any doubt the H-1B and various associated visa programs are corporate cronyism at the WORST for our nation and citizens.
In recent years, revenue growth at IBM has been stubbornly elusive, and new technologies like cloud computing have risen to threaten the company's traditional hardware and software businesses. Those concerns have weighed on the company's stock price, which has been stagnant since Ms. Rometty took over nearly two and a half years ago.
But in an interview at IBM's headquarters in Armonk, N.Y., Ms. Rometty said she and the company now had a clear vision for how to pursue another generation of growth. ...
Ms. Rometty's message to IBM's more than 400,000 employees is to embrace the future, and quickly, rather than resist it. The abrupt change in the company's approach to cloud computing recently, analysts say, is an example. ...
IBM faces plenty of competitors in the cloud market, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Salesforce. And analysts say that as the largest supplier to corporate data center technology, IBM has the most to lose when companies move from traditional data-center computing to cloud rivals of IBM.
Last month, IBM reported quarterly revenue which revealed that software alone is making the tech giant profit. Big Blue reported first quarter earnings of $2.4 billion, or $2.29 a share, down 21 percent year-on-year. First quarter sales were $22.5 billion, down four percent based on 2013 results.
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, who has been press shy since ascending to the top job two years ago, has been unusually chatty of late. She surfaced in a New York Times interview Sunday, on CNBC on Tuesday. And at an analyst conference Wednesday, she reiterated IBM's goal of hitting $20 earnings per share by 2015. That target was set in 2012 and is now viewed askance by analysts, some of whom think that this EPS bullseye is not only unlikely but sort of beside the point when investors should be focusing on revenue growth. ...
So, IBM continues to refocus around cloud (and mobile) selling off its X86 server business, cutting jobs. But the thing is, nearly all of its competitors — including Microsoft, VMware et. al– are all after that business. I agree with analysts like Bernstein Research's Toni Sacconaghi who say the $20 EPS goal is more public relations than substance if profit comes from lower tax rates, layoffs and stock buybacks. IBM still has to convince the world that it can do cloud as well as, or better than Amazon, Microsoft, and a raft of other competitors.
The only reader comment follows:
You didn't mention that it's likely many high level executives bonuses are directly tied to hitting the $20 EPS goal. Shareholders may not care at this point, but the executives certainly still do.
Samuel J. Palmisano replaced Gerstner's eight principles with five traits and nine competencies, which spanned several web pages. Always positioned in the press as the salesman's salesman, Palmisano did little to assist his former peers in sales over his nine years in the corner office. Revenue per employee stood at $228,000 in 2002, when he took the helm, and nine years later remained the same.
Under Sam's watch, an IBM culture that was always full of heroic sales stories (stories of salesmen closing deals on the last day of the year, of lab support blackening the skies to solve a customer problem, and of executive teams that understood the value of human relationships) was replaced by a deafening silence.
And as covered in my last article, linked above, Ginni Rometty is not off to a good start. To be fair, she is still working with the hand she has been dealt. She must focus now on transitioning her human resources organization from just an extension of finance to being a human relations organization. She must expect, enable, and set the example for her executives to be assistants to their teams. ...
The Last Eight Years — Making Unsupported Claims. IBM's CEO and Board of Directors have claimed the following in their annual reports over the last eight years:
It is hard to tell what these annual reports are using to substantiate such claims: it is definitely not revenue per employee or sales morale. The revenue per employee data covering the last two decades and the last ten years speak for themselves. ...
Selected reader comments follow:
Relative to the sales culture, or lack thereof, the best way I can describe how it has morphed can be distilled down to a common sentiment I heard hundreds of times before I finally left, from folks all across the organization, and it went something like this: "Why should I bust my rump for 80 hours this week just to make that happen? In the end, the execs will make all the money and I will probably get laid off."
Your new IBM culture in action, thanks to Lou, Sam and Ginni.
That much was clear in the reaction to Big Blue's analyst meeting on Wednesday, at which it maintained its target of delivering $20 in operating earnings per share in 2015. Despite that promise, shares of International Business Machines slipped, adding to a steady decline since the company reported disappointing first-quarter results last month.
Even more notable is how the stock has lost nearly 6% against a 30% increase in the Nasdaq Composite since IBM's last analyst day in February 2013. The $20-per-share target was promised there as well, but investors have grown more skeptical since.
IBM had a reputation as a reliable generator of earnings-per-share growth despite challenges to expand its enormous revenue base. But that is looking tarnished these days. Earnings fell more than 15% in the first quarter from the year-ago period, with IBM reporting its eighth consecutive quarterly revenue decline year over year. ...
The company said it has made 43 acquisitions since the beginning of 2010, but revenue has expanded by just a little over 4% in that time. To deliver 10% annual revenue growth now would require IBM to find about $10 billion in new sales in a market where its big rivals are hunting for precisely the same thing. ...
The challenge of doing that explains why IBM maintains its focus on delivering higher earnings growth. But the target of $20 a share for 2015 implies growth of almost 23% over a two-year period, which looks ambitious. And IBM admitted Wednesday that it faces a "tax headwind" of about $1.50 a share against that goal. Moreover, based on the company's current forecast, share buybacks will account for less than half of the expected growth.
Striking proof of how things are changing came late last year when the US Central Intelligence Agency handed a $600m data centre contract to an unlikely supplier: internet retailer Amazon. The sight of a government agency whose name is a byword for information security hiring a company that made its name on the consumer internet may well turn other customers' heads, says Toni Sacconaghi, a computer industry analyst at Sanford C Bernstein. That "could call into question IBM's role as the pre-eminent partner" for corporate IT departments, he adds.
"You can never be fired for buying IBM" has long been a mantra for risk-averse IT managers. But these days, according to Steve Milunovich, a tech analyst at UBS in New York, customers can sometimes be heard using a new refrain that should send a chill down IBM's spine: "No one gets fired for buying Amazon." ...
For more than a decade, IBM has raised its earnings per share by 11 per cent a year, even as its revenues have risen only 2 per cent. In 2011, that record was sufficient to attract the attentions of Warren Buffett, the investor, who had previously steered clear of the tech industry. Mr Buffett's near-$11bn investment, for more than 6 per cent of the stock, has made him IBM's biggest shareholder.
As it turns out, he would have done better to buy index funds. IBM shares have underperformed the wider market since then, as revenues have slipped and Wall Street has worried that large parts of its business are threatened by the cloud. ...
Most of the earnings-per-share gains of recent years have come from cost-cutting or from buying back stock, with relatively little from moving into new, high-margin businesses, says Mr Sacconaghi.
Critics go further, contending that the relentless cost-cutting to hit earnings targets has damaged IBM's business. It has been "death by a thousand cuts", says Bob Djurdjevic, a former IBM executive and IT analyst.
Such accusations exasperate Ms Rometty. "I don't know what else I would do – what did I not do?" she says. Pointing to IBM's spending on research and development, she adds: "Our investment level at over 6 per cent of revenues is fantastic and has been unwavering." ...
Ms Rometty herself pays tribute to an IBM culture that she says has served the company well over the long term, even as she presses for faster action from its 400,000 workers. Asked what she is doing to shake things up, she stresses a more responsive approach to the company – "a constant change, test, change, test [in] real time". She adds: "I think all businesses are going to move into that: experiment, learn, try."
Travis Bullard, a spokesman for GlobalFoundries, said the arrangement is temporary, and is expected to run for eight months.
The move occurs as speculation continues about whether GlobalFoundries will buy some of IBM's chip business. Sources quoted anonymously in the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal said IBM is shopping for a buyer and GlobalFoundries is the leading candidate. There has been no comment from either company. ...
Bullard said GlobalFoundries has "set up a new contractor service agreement with IBM," under which the workers will remain IBM employees but will work on GlobalFoundries projects. "We've actually done these in the past with IBM on specific projects," he said. "This one is a new one that will allow up to approximately 150 to 200 experienced technical folks that will be able to assist us as we work to ramp our production at our Fab8 facility."
Pros: The benefits package they offer is great: you get to put a good percentage towards your pension with contributions from the company, flexible working hours and working from home. I think this keeps a lot of people - especially those with families - where they are.
The location where I work is great for outdoor activities and after (or even during!) work hours socialising, sports, and friendly inter-departmental competition is encouraged. Great people with a lot of knowledge and passion for the customer.
Cons: In the last few years the company has been so focused on getting to a target earnings per share that everything, including employee morale, has suffered. There is no budget to do anything. Most importantly, even when you perform well, that is just a number in a report and a pat on the back.
The loyalty we show for the company has not been returned.
Low salary compared with the industry, little or no pay increase once you're on board; no bonuses in the last year, and when you apply for promotion (which is an exercise in bureaucracy if ever I saw one, why isn't it enough to have done a good job at that level as I have done for years?), a salary increase is not guaranteed.
Graduates come in at a higher salary than longer-standing employees, even though they don't have any experience!
It's very hard to know where you can move to internally because of the sheer size of the company. It's more like lots of smaller, competing companies under one roof. Unless you know someone it's hard to get into another 'silo'. Sometimes there are hiring restrictions internally (i.e. people moving departments).
Lots of red tape, takes a long time to get anything done.
Advice to Senior Management: Show the same concern for your employees as you do for your bottom line. You're losing good people.
Pros: Flexibility with work location and schedule. Reasonable management chain. The vast majority of employees are pleasant to work with.
Cons: People who tend to stay at IBM are interested in optimizing their work/life balance, not pushing the envelope. This is a place for folks who like meetings, process, talking and PowerPoint. Unfortunately this cultural reinforcement has resulted in chasing off true development and technical talent which is not tolerant of these activities. Given the focus on cost cutting there is not much money to pay talent and due to the widespread exodus of engineering ability it is nearly impossible for management to recognize the truly skilled contributors from the pretenders.
Advice to Senior Management: Divest laggard divisions more aggressively and bring in some new leadership at all levels with incentives to move IBM to the future, not cut their way to EPS driven bonuses without any creativity or growth whatsoever.
Pros: Smart, dedicated co-workers; some vestiges of the old collegiality at the working level.
Cons: IBM's business model is totally out of date. They are now being marginalized by new players like Google, Amazon, etc., and old competitors like HP-Compaq. As sales are falling drastically, they can't fire people fast enough. The executives are running the place like a third-world banana republic: massive bonuses for themselves; the working stiffs in the US are all being fired for low-cost, third-world labor offshore.
The only engineering innovation that matters any more is financial engineering of the earnings per share. However, EPS targets can only be achieved by layoffs and share buybacks, due to falling sales, and Wall Street isn't fooled. Businesses and employees are being jettisoned at a rapid pace; a much smaller and weaker company will be the result.
Advice to Senior Management: Stop treating all non-executive employees like serfs. INVEST in new projects; don't shut them down the minute they fall below some unrealistic profitability threshold.
Pros: Opportunity to contribute, learn and grow, work from home, thrive on driving change and process improvements, lots of take-aways over the years but competitive salary, benefits etc. People make the company great!
Cons: If you aren't revenue generating you are considered back office and if you are in the US there is a good chance your job over time will be moved offshore. Best opportunities for me are overseas. If you get out of management it's hard to find your way back in. No longer reimbursed for professional certifications but I'm glad I obtained them.
Advice to Senior Management: People don't know when or if they will be let go. It's been like this for a long time and this is contrary to the foundational beliefs the company was founded on. Not respectful of people who have given their lives to make the company great.
Pros: In my position there are no tight deadlines to speak of. Pretty laid back. Plenty of work to keep me busy, but not a lot of pressure to meet hard deadlines. I come from just the opposite so it's a huge difference for me.
Cons: Lotus Notes is terrible...I feel like it is the mid 90's. It's slow and buggy. I honestly could not stand using it if I was in my previous high-pressure (and high email volume) job. Since my role at IBM is pretty laid back the lost productivity just means I get less done...but that's OK.
Required use of Linux as a desktop for anyone with privileged access. I like Linux as a server and like the command line but hate it for desktop OS.
Things can be slow to happen...like getting access to things or policy changes, etc.
Advice to Senior Management: Make Lotus Notes work well (i.e. be quick, responsive, and not buggy) or move to a better email client. I can't imagine the lost productivity time multiplied by each of the 400k workers each year.
Pros: You can choose to learn something about yourself and business every day and never be disappointed — there is so much knowledge in the organization that the challenge is filtering to what is truly important to you in the now. IBM is your own personal MBA, such is the pressure and the challenge, but being part of a community that struggles and wins with you.
Cons: Tough management, ruthless resourcing actions, bureaucracy, and your work is never finished. This is a company where you have to be entirely self-motivating when the going gets tough, or when significant people are made redundant around you. The performance ranking system can make for a dog-eat-dog environment where you have to outperform your peer to advance, and that can hurt collaboration or openness.
Advice to Senior Management: Management needs to be more cognizant of the demands placed on their reportees, and be a filter of the pressure brought down from above. Too much of the HQ investor-driven behavior gets down the management line.
Pros: Great people; lots of opportunity to learn from others.
Cons: Always wondering if your business/job will survive the next cuts. Cuts have become continuous. Forgot founding principles — NO respect for the individual that IBM was known for. Execs have forgotten what IBM was and what IBM should be.
Advice to Senior Management: Remember the value of the people. Stop throwing people out the door just to meet numbers, and give us back the pensions you took away with incorrect and misleading information.
Pros: Great flexibility and opportunities to change roles, functions; brand recognition; pay is good if you work in IBM Software Labs; great volunteering opportunities even in India.
Cons: Very poor pay if you work for IBM Global Services in India; lack of transparency in performance review systems; the band system and job designations are vague and are interpreted differently across the organization; bureaucracy — it takes forever to get anything done from the support functions, especially Immigration.
Pros: I got away with doing literally nothing for 10 months: didn't go to work, didn't produce anything meaningful, didn't take calls, nothing.
Cons: The training was the worst two months of my life. I would rather loose a limb than do it again. The management is completely incompetent — how do you let someone get away with doing no work for so long? When you do work you have to travel to the middle of nowhere e.g. Slough or an office park in Leeds; not my idea of fun.
Advice to Senior Management: Leave the company. Let it cease to exist; the world will lose a blemish.
Pros: A range a different jobs are available The technical people are still very good...but for how much longer?
Cons: I took voluntary redundancy after 25 plus years, 1st quarter, 2014. After they asked for volunteers and I said yes, please, I was told no; we still need you. Then 2 weeks later I was told actually you are for the chop! A classic example of the quality of the management. The package was OK; nothing special.
The process is more important that anything else.
Virtually all second-line managers and above have next to no technical skills beyond turning on their laptops. The expense constraints are ridiculous and the PBC process lost all credibility years ago. However it can potentially affect your career. I was lucky in that I had a really good first line for 7 to 8 years but many were not.
Short-term results are everything. Things like orders placed THIS WEEK, not this quarter, even though the various teams are measured quarterly. I saw a colleague roasted alive virtually because an order slipped into the follow week, even though it was the same month and quarter. Madness!
Advice to Senior Management: Treat the people with the respect they deserve. It is they who made the company what it is and will most likely have to pick up the pieces when the 2015 roadmap is over and the most senior have taken there bonus/options and run to the hills. I don't think for one minute the senior management will consider this, of course.
Pros: Work-life balance is very good as you can work from home or in office based on your needs. Offers lots of education resources on-line and on-site.
Cons: Constant cost-cutting actions; mentality of employees seen as liability not asset. Continues to layoff excellent employees to get to 2015 road map even though it's no longer viable in this market. The PBC rating system is used to get rid of employees, not improve their performance. Once you are rated a "2", you are on the "layoff list".
Advice to Senior Management: Get rid of the PBC rating system. It's outdated and no longer relevant. The skew system is not fair as very good employees have their ratings lowered just because it's "their turn".
Pros: Decent benefits; somewhat stable; interesting projects at times; flexible/can work from outside the office.
Cons: Personal growth is almost non-existent. Management doesn't treat employees well. It's almost bully-like. No pay raises in years. "Bonuses" — almost embarrassing they are so low. Quick to point out the bad; slow to congratulate you on a job well done. Toxic environment — morale at an all time low.
Advice to Senior Management: Take a look at what groups the talented employees are leaving and who is heading up that group. Perhaps they are the root of all the turnover. Replacing talent is $$$. Do a better job of retaining the ones you've got.
Pros: Huge company with HUGE expectations to live up to.
Cons: IBM treats its employees very poorly. Benefits and perks have been stripped away over the last 10 years. Now they will come for your job and your salary. Everyone lives in fear of the layoffs. There are startlingly few resources for such a big company with that much cash on hand. Big new projects don't have the budgets to meet their targets properly. It's only a matter of time before quality becomes a big issue.
Advice to Senior Management: Come down from the stratosphere and see what you are doing to this great company and the average American worker.
Pros: Nice people to work with. Flexible work schedule specially when starting your family. Competitive salary to start with, but do not expect any raise or promotion. No job growth.
Cons: Constant layoffs. Incompetent management; promotion is based on golf buddy system. Major projects goes to top echelon (paper pushers) even though the actual work is being done by the other staffs. No recognition/promotion if you are not the manager's golf buddy circle. No job growth or advancement. No education benefits. Expect layoff every year.
Pros: Vast self-learning library so you can certify on just about everything in your spare time. So when you leave for greener pastures you're well versed in just about everything in technology and packaged software.
Cons: No spare time or you're let go (pink-slipped)...because you don't meet numbers. Non-US offices are subject to local culture nuances. China leaders employ GF's as non-working employees putting even more pressure on working team members to support concubinage.
Advice to Senior Management: Review local culture and alignment with acceptable standards. If management gets a staff GF we should all get GF exemptions.
Pros: IBM was a great place to work up until the early 2000's. It had principles and pushed technology forward. There was opportunity for education, conferences, activities, etc.
Cons: After 2000 they lost sight of the things that made them a great company. Employees were treated as disposable items. Quality was no longer of concern. Jobs went out of the US simply because of cost. Social issues were pushed for the few at the expense of the rest. Benefits and retirement policies were reduced.
Advice to Senior Management: Gerstner took over IBM and stripped it of it's soul...then Palmisano burdened it with layers of clueless mismanagement which yielded Rometty to complete the dehumanization. This company is living on the fading fragrance of a long empty vase. It is no Google, Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, etc.
Pros: World-class technology solutions; great, knowledgeable people; learn something every day; stellar reputation in the industry.
Cons: Huge and complex company to work for; matrixed organization makes it difficult to be quick and responsive to client needs; constant management churn makes it difficult to have clear strategy in place to execute; change is constant which makes it difficult to produce consistent results; top management unable to show revenue growth, but is very focused on EPS metric to make Wall Street happy.
Advice to Senior Management: Have a 5-year plan for the company to grow and execute on it, instead of constantly changing the product/solution mix which results in revenues going down every year (quarter). Have a long term vision/strategy that is built around the factors described in the book "Good to Great" by Jim Collins and execute on that with a core management team that stays in place for 5 to 10 years.
Pros: If you want to travel globally, there are lots of jobs for that...but expect to fly coach no matter where you go. In some areas they pay competitively, but you will work lots of hours.
Cons: The benefits are eroded for a big company and not that good. The growth opportunities will just depend on your own initiative, and willingness to stick your own neck out and search — no one will be looking out for you and trying to get you a path/promotion — unless you are real lucky and get a rare boss that will do that. It's not the IBM way.
The company has a bias toward "an IBMer" who is someone that has been with the company for some time. Middle managers from acquisitions are at a big disadvantage. The culture is very cut throat. There is an illusion of a work/life balance (lip service paid to it). Upper management seems to in many ways out of touch (ivory tower like).
Advice to Senior Management: Look for ways to empower first line managers more. They and the people that work for them are you life blood, and I've talked with enough to know it's not pretty what they are dealing with, and generally their opinion of the company is not very good
Pros: Work/life balance with great compensation. Solid technical tools to get the job done. They hire solid talent so you grow your career along with being super productive with shared business goals.
Cons: Can be variable in recruitment space as projects vary in closure. Part of any recruitment company in terms of being adaptive. Overall, great experience during my couple of years.
Advice to Senior Management: None.
Pros: There is a lot of exposure to different industries. It's very easy to have a career at IBM where you can change what you are working on every few years without getting board working on a single project/technology.
Cons: The company is too big for its own good. The company doesn't care about the employee and due to its size takes forever to approve requests for simple things like a notebook or a box of pencils.
There are a number of standards that they put in place to ensure all the application have a similar design paradigm means that creativity, exploration, and progression through a fast paced ever changing world is nearly impossible.
It's impossible to move up in the company; raises/bonuses are few and far between. No company outings; health care options cost more than any other company I have worked for or heard about.
At the end of the day the only things the upper management cares about is whats in their paycheck; the promises made to the stockholders; and they really don't care about you as a person.
On a business note, our customers were also frustrated with the speed at which IBM moved. They need fixed, enhancements etc. to compete in their market. Waiting for yearly releases just isn't possible anymore. Customers need a more agile release process where they can get releases and change faster and they can put them in place more quickly and efficiently.
Advice to Senior Management: Listen to your customers and give something back to the employees. They work hard and don't have much to show for it.
Pros: Opportunity to work with smart people all over the world. Interesting problems to solve. Ability to change roles without changing companies. Generally pretty flexible with work schedule.
Cons: I and my whole team of experienced (high-performing) professionals were fired in 2013. The company is on a short term EPS path; achieving numbers via cost-cutting, which causes a downward spiral to the whole business. The practices hurt innovation (contrary to goals in the press), because employees are obviously not valued, and constantly in fear of losing their jobs.
Advice to Senior Management: Stop treating employees like disposable equipment.
Pros: Many paths for advancing your career and skill set. Great people to work with (though if most of your team is on another site, move there or change to a local project). The environment really is set up to communicate well with your team and provide you the required assistance in getting a project done.
Cons: Constant threat of layoffs even in the quarters with good market performance. Upper management really gives no warning about employment prospects. It is probably best to be in a city where there are other employment options, should your job go away.
Advice to Senior Management: I've enjoyed my 1st and 2nd line managers (even some higher ups), but upper level management seems to focus on stock performance over retaining good employees.
Pros: Lots of very smart people. IBM has great capabilities to develop and debug cool products. Managers are generally skilled and bright enough not to micromanage. They let you do things your way as long as you get your job done.
Cons: Poor morale caused by frequent layoffs. Upper management doesn't share much information about the hardware division's future trajectory. Pay raises and bonuses have been scarce for several years.
Advice to Senior Management: Slow cuts to staffing is not working for the company or employees. A mission that is appropriate to our new staffing size needs to clearly stated and then implemented. Start sharing more big picture information.
Pros: The ability to work from home. Still an OK severance package.
Cons: The innovation left several years ago. IBM is now expert at acquiring companies and over a few years destroying their value. The bureaucracy is something to be experienced. The internal systems waste 30% of my time. The sale is all that is important; the delivery is often seen as an inconvenient expense. There is no point in working for promotion as you don't know when your number will come up. An average 6 months and you will be RA'd (Resource Adjusted, aka made redundant).
Advice to Senior Management: The management know via internal and external surveys that morale and loyalty to the company is rock bottom — but they have little room to move given the sums wasted on share buy back and road map 2015. Management should abandon road map 2015. Take the share price hit — the market will return when it can see that the company is generating real value rather than paper value.
Pros: Great people work in there. The experience is in overall positive, but it is the kind of job that you cannot do for too long. You have freedom to move to other teams in the country in case you hate your job. They also promote the rotation to try to avoid that people get to comfortable on their job.
Cons: It varies on every country IBM is in, but in Slovakia you get no overtime paid, in any way. That means that you will stay very late sometimes to support deals you are getting no commission for, for basically no extra money or vacation. You can cope on that for few weeks, but not for long.
It is extremely inflexible in many ways. You can start from the bottom, perform perfectly and get a better position, but your salary will not be raised in a year for a battery of reasons: frozen budget, the raises take place only twice a year, your salary cannot be uplifted more than 20% a year. They recognize the hard work, but they are extremely reluctant to pay for it.
They have stupid internal policies. Everybody knows they are stupid but nobody stands up and shouts for a change.
For an IT company, the technological resources are not the best. They try to sell cloud but don´t offer it to the teams; the file size of an employee is 150mb when your Gmail account has gigas.
Advice to Senior Management: It is difficult to advice anything to managers. I know how my team works, but I don´t know how the same team works in Brazil or in Malaysia, so I think that they do what they do for a reason... that I still didn't manage to understand :)
Pros: Lots of different projects to work on in numerous fields. Lots of talented people. Many opportunities to telecommute. Typically get to work on different projects if you stay there for quite a few years. Decent benefits.
Cons: Generally don't seem to appreciate the employees any more. They kill (or move overseas) entire projects and often don't give employees a chance at other jobs within company, no matter how talented and hard-working they have been proven to be.
Strategy is all about earnings per share, not about how to improve products and their service to customers to increase revenue.
The value to customers has decreased significantly over the years. Decent pay increases rare except for the select few. Rating system seems to be based largely on office politics.
Can be difficult (or impossible) to move between divisions, even when you have the skills and the jobs are available (to those already in that division). Benefits, although decent, have steadily eroded over time. Little or no education any more.
Advice to Senior Management: Remember when IBM valued their talented and hard working employees? Need to get back to that. Skills and experience matter. Replacing experienced people who work well (and have a history with) customers with younger, less skilled (of course lower paid) workers does not treat customers properly. Customers are figuring out what is going on. Too many levels of management. Remember when Gerstner came in and reduced the levels. It eventually went back to the way it was before. Figure out technologies and products to pursue and let that drive earnings per share, not the other way around.
For years now, a key strategy of employers is to shift costs onto workers via higher deductibles and co-payments in part to slow the growth of the total company-paid premium by getting workers to think twice before choosing an expensive test or procedure in hopes these workers become better shoppers. Those moves are translating into rapid deterioration in the percentage of workers who are happy with their health benefits.
Americans also work among the most "extreme" hours, which the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development defines as 50-plus hours a week. It's a trend that's been accelerating among white-collar workers since the 1980s, especially once Silicon Valley programmers started pulling all-nighters and wearing T-shirts boasting "90 Hours a Week and Loving it."
But let's face it, the official record of hours worked doesn't tell the whole story of our work-worshipping, workaholic culture. What's missing? All the "after-hours" unpaid, off-the-clock face time you put in at the office because the boss is still there, or because everyone else is still there, some deadline is looming, or you're afraid you'll be seen as deadwood if you leave first. The Japanese also have a word for this: furoshiki, "cloaked overtime."
What else is missing from those work hour calculations? All the time on technology, the stolen evenings answering texts and calls, the e-mails that come in at 11 p.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m. The constant feeling of being tethered to the office and always "on call."
Even so, you can almost hear the chorus of rationalizing, if exhausted, protest in workplaces throughout the land: "Yes, but isn't putting in all those hours just what it takes to be No. 1?"
That's why the OECD's annual measure of productivity is so eye-opening, No, it turns out, it doesn't. Long hours, in some cases, are a drag on hourly productivity, not to mention efficiency and innovation. Take Japan and South Korea, for instance, which hover close to the bottom of the hourly productivity rankings despite the meditation prisons in Korea and workers dying at their desks in Japan.
Some years, Norway, Luxembourg and Ireland rank higher than the United States in hourly productivity. Germany, which has a policy of "Kurtzarbeit" or short work hours in order to spread the work around and reduce unemployment, is highly productive by the hour.
And the country whose productivity in many years rivals the overworked United States? France. Yes, France. Where workers enjoy 30 days of paid vacation every year (the United States is the only advanced economy with no paid vacation policy), generous social supports (the cost of a maid is tax deductible!), and, as one recent controversial commercial put it, a leisurely stroll to the café after leaving work at a decent hour.
Denmark, a country I visited while reporting "Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time," a book on time pressure and modern life, is not only one of the most productive, but also one of the happiest. (The United States, in contrast, is ranked by the World Health Organization as the most anxious.) In Denmark, I was told, no one is rewarded for working long hours, and the boss is often the first out the door. "Here, if you can't get your work done in the standard 37 hours a week," one Dane told me, "you're seen as inefficient."
"[T]he retirement system we have in place does not line up with the needs and realities of our post-industrial economy," Rubio said. "In this new century, most people will live longer and voluntarily work longer. And many people will change jobs countless times, often in business for themselves or working for companies that do not offer retirement savings plans or pensions." ...
Additionally, he endorsed turning Medicare into a "premium support" program under which seniors would be given a voucher that they could spend on health insurance, either by buying into the current Medicare program, or purchasing a qualifying private plan.
The American dream is not just a yearning for affluence, Adams said, but also for the chance to overcome barriers and social class, to become the best that we can be. Adams acknowledged that the United States didn't fully live up to that ideal, but he argued that America came closer than anywhere else.
Adams was right at the time, and for decades. When my father, an eastern European refugee, reached France after World War II, he was determined to continue to the United States because it was less class bound, more meritocratic and offered more opportunity
Yet today the American dream has derailed, partly because of growing inequality. Or maybe the American dream has just swapped citizenship, for now it is more likely to be found in Canada or Europe — and a central issue in this year's political campaigns should be how to repatriate it.
A report last month in The Times by David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy noted that the American middle class is no longer the richest in the world, with Canada apparently pulling ahead in median after-tax income. Other countries in Europe are poised to overtake us as well.
In fact, the discrepancy is arguably even greater. Canadians receive essentially free health care, while Americans pay for part of their health care costs with after-tax dollars. Meanwhile, the American worker toils, on average, 4.6 percent more hours than a Canadian worker, 21 percent more hours than a French worker and an astonishing 28 percent more hours than a German worker, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Canadians and Europeans also live longer, on average, than Americans do. Their children are less likely to die than ours. American women are twice as likely to die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth as Canadian women. And, while our universities are still the best in the world, children in other industrialized countries, on average, get a better education than ours. Most sobering of all: A recent O.E.C.D. report found that for people aged 16 to 24, Americans ranked last among rich countries in numeracy and technological proficiency. ...
The top six hedge fund managers and traders averaged more than $2 billion each in earnings last year, partly because of the egregious "carried interest" tax break. President Obama has been unable to get financing for universal prekindergarten; this year's proposed federal budget for pre-K for all, so important to our nation's future, would be a bit more than a single month's earnings for those six tycoons.
In Seoul and Tokyo, for example, consumers can subscribe to "gigabit" service for less than $35 a month. The gigabit service delivers download speeds of up to 1,000 megabits per second. The average U.S. consumer's download speed is about 24.2 Mbps, and while gigabit service is available in a few U.S. markets, like San Francisco and Chattanooga, even the cheapest U.S. carrier charges twice as much as those in Tokyo and Seoul.
Even at sub-gigabit levels of service, the Open Technology Institute found, U.S. providers don't come close to matching the deals available abroad. Verizon last year announced that in certain markets, it would provide 500 Mbps service for those willing to pay $300 a month for it. A similar plan in Amsterdam would cost about $86.
The problem is that in the U.S., most homes are served by a limited number of ISPs. In some cases, the only option for a broadband connection is a cable television provider that has exclusive access to entire metropolitan areas. Others have a cable provider that competes with a phone company offering DSL service. In rare cases, companies like Verizon have run Fiber optic cable to domestic subscribers, but in most markets, that remains rare.
"I would say-- I would always answer never, I mean, because it's continuous transformation. If I have learned anything in my decades with this company, it's constantly changing this company for the future. That's what I'm here for."
Only way she is going to make $20/share by 2015 is to joint venture and dump Microelectronics Division. -MORE DIVESTITURES-
As long as this is being ignored you cannot succeed. In an age of iPads and gizmos, its hard to convince people of intangible things such as justice and fair play and culture.
IBM continues to try to meet their goals by specializing in financial engineering, commanding thousands of employees to simply start billing their customers 55 hours per week for the remaining two months of the quarter to achieve that overall 131% Q2 utilization. Don't you think if the work was already there, we would already be doing it in a planned fashion?
This doesn't get nearly enough attention...salaried workers in the trenches are disgusted, suspect lots of fraud happening to meet billing targets, and the great unsaid — crazy forced, billed 'overtime', but of course that word is never used.
Utilization targets..."if you don't meet them, may lead to executives re-evaluating headcount". -Phil-
On the other hand, I know that for a month or so they charged a client as if I was working full time on the account when I was working only half-time, but that was to cover up the fact I was only working half-time since I had been assigned to a different account also and things were so political and tense it was impossible to back out of either engagement. Of course I got no overtime despite doing twice the work! -Anon-
This site is designed to allow IBM Employees to communicate and share methods of protecting their rights through the establishment of an IBM Employees Labor Union. Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act states it is a violation for Employers to spy on union gatherings, or pretend to spy. For the purpose of the National Labor Relations Act, notice is given that this site and all of its content, messages, communications, or other content is considered to be a union gathering.


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UAE has always been a unique jurisdiction for businessmen and corporates to start their operations with huge benefits gained in terms of tax free jurisdiction, excellent infrastructure, access to an international market, world's largest seaports and airports and an excellent record of per capita income. The ease of operating from Free Zones has always been an edge to the existing businessmen as well as new entrants to the market, all of which makes UAE the best place for doing business.
We do know the benefits and advantages of starting up businesses in UAE but there are chances of failure if the startup is not well planned and executed. Businesses looking to establish in UAE are faced with challenges such as selection of an appropriate activity to license for, what kind of license to opt for whether an L.L.C. company registered in mainland suits you more or a Company registered in any of the free zones, selecting the best office and warehouse locations e.t.c. We are a team of Professional Consultants providing the market leading services for Company formations and setup in any part of UAE. We not only advise you on the right business activity to opt for, right jurisdiction to locate your business in UAE, we also have the ability to source a reliable local sponsor to you and advise you on the right location to choose for your office(s) and/or warehouse(s).
Push Digits Consultancy is the market leader in helping individuals and companies set up their business in the most appropriate way. We always walk with our clients side by side in not only setting up and starting their business perfectly, we also cater to their accounting and audit requirements, which are compulsory for any business in UAE, through our teams of Professional Accountants and Auditors. We are into a strategic Partnership with a renowned Audit Firm of UAE, to serve you the best for your audit requirements.
We are not only proud to have the ability to provide these services of business setup to accounting and audit, we are also capable to provide you all of these services at unbeatable competitive prices. So the team of Push Digits not only benefits you with supreme quality services, they also make sure that these services are provided to you on best market prices. Our expert consultants are available 24/7 to talk to you and meet you to explain further on how best we can help you in setting up your Company, however to walk you briefly over the initial knowledge base from our expert consultants, we have compiled the below for your initial understanding.
As per the laws of UAE (United Arab Emirates), there are only five kinds of business establishments which the foreign organizations can apply for if they wish to be formally present or operate in the UAE. These applicable business establishments include:
|Types of Companies
|Consultancy by Push Digits
|Permanent Establishment
|Branch office
|Entity in a UAE free zone
|Civil Company (confined to the Emirates of Dubai and Sharjah)
|Commercial Agency Arrangement
According to the requirements of Commercial Companies Law of UAE, every company established in UAE must have 1 or more UAE national partner(s) who must have at least 51% stake in the company's capital. The 51% rule is not applicable on companies that undertake specific activities including the companies in the:
- Oil and gas sector,
- the entities involved in the treatment of water and distribution and transmission,
- Companies which produce gas and electricity,
- Oil companies with concession agreements.
The foreign banks are not required to have a sponsor. Furthermore, if any free zone has specific provisions regulating the companies, the companies established in that free zone are exempt from 51% rule.
Our expertise and experience in professional accounting and consultancy equips us to provide our services to a wide range of clients ranging from service providers, traders to manufacturers. Our clients have every reason to say that we are the best professionals in the town in terms of our quality work and competitive prices.
Steven M Curbelo
Atif Abrar
Husni Al Bayari
Shriram Gaud
Affan Zuberi
Michael T. Love
Anders Kargaard
George Yiasemides
Permanent Establishments
The permanent establishments can be created in following eight ways:
|1- General Partnerships:
General partnerships can only be established between the nationals of UAE. Two or more general partners can establish this entity who are liable for the obligations of the entity to extent of their personal assets.
|2- Limited Partnerships:
Limited Partnerships require at least two partners. There must be at least one active partner and at least one inactive or silent partner. Active partner manages daily operations of the entity and is responsible for the entity's liabilities. Inactive partner is not involved in operations of the entity and is responsible for the entity's obligations to the extent of his capital contributions.
|3- Joint Ventures:
Joint ventures can be formed between at least two partners. The partners share the profit and loss generated by the businesses; managed by one partner in his/her name.
|4- Public Joint Stock Companies:
Any company whose capital comprises of publicly subscribed negotiable shares of equal value or any company in which a public body of UAE holds share capital is public joint stock company.
The minimum amount of capital required to establish such an entity is AED 10 million. There must be at least 10 founding members and it is vital for the foreign entities to know that anyone who signs the articles and memorandum of association initially is considered as founding member and hence liable. The businesses in UAE relating to insurance, investment of money on behalf of 3rd parties and banking are required to be established as public joint stock companies.
|5- Private Joint Stock Companies:
At least 3 founding members are required to establish a private joint stock company and there must be a minimum subscribed capital of AED 2,000,000 between them. The shares of such entity cannot be offered to public. Private joint stock companies can be converted into public joint stock companies if following four conditions are fulfilled:
The shares are fully paid up.
The entity has been operating for 2 or more financial years.
Majority shareholders holding at least seventy five percent of company's share capital must approve a resolution of the extraordinary general assembly to transform their entity.
During the 2 years preceding the application for conversion, the entity has attained distributable net profits of at least 10% of its capital on an average.
|6- Limited Liability Companies:
A LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY is an association of minimum 2 and maximum 50 partners. The obligation of each partner is limited to the extent of its capital contribution in the company. The earlier minimum capital requirements (AED 0.3 million in Dubai and AED 0.15 million in Abu Dhabi and rest of Emirates) have been removed. However Department of Economic Development of the related Emirate is required to judge the test of 'Sufficient Capital' based on intended operations and size of the entity.
|7- Partnerships Limited with Shares:
The minimum required capital to establish partnership limited with shares is AED 500,000. This type of entity is formed between general partners and participating partners. General partners should be nationals of UAE and are jointly responsible for entity's obligations to the extent of their personal assets. Participating partners are not allowed to participate in the daily management of the entity and are liable to the extent of their contribution in capital.
|8- Establishments by GCC Citizens:
In 1981, the United Economic Agreement was signed by the states of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) including Sultanate of Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. The agreement was endorsed by UAE in 1982. The aim of the agreement was to develop unification and coordination among the commercial, economic, fiscal and industrial regulations.
As per the requirements of Federal Law No. 2 of 1989, a GCC citizen who is permitted to conduct a business operation in UAE must be a natural person who is resident of UAE and he must practice the required activity by himself and have a license to conduct the activity in his country of origin. If the investor is a juridical person who wishes to conduct wholesale or retail business then the investor must be in the form of a company whose at least 50% shares are held by UAE nationals.
Branch Offices vs. Representative/Liaison Offices
A branch office operates under the name of its parent entity and carries the same legal identity as its parent company does. Every Emirate has its own set of rules related to the grant of license for branch office. This form of entity can perform various activities as authorized by the Department of Economic of the related Emirate. Branch offices are considered as full-fledged businesses and can carry out its operations as per the specifications of the license.
For example, if a foreign entity wishes to open a branch in Abu Dhabi then it must comply with the following:
- Acquire the below mentioned documents in the above mentioned company's country of origin
Resolution from the foreign entity's board of directors in respect of establishing a branch in Abu Dhabi and conducting its operations there.
The official documented proof that confirms the existence and proper registration of the entity in that country and also includes its legal status, the power of its representatives, paid-up capital and the title.
A copy of the memorandum or articles of association of the foreign entity.
The latest two audit reports and approved financial statements of the entity.
A valid power of attorney granted to the person who will represent the entity in front of authorities of Abu Dhabi and who will sign the agency agreement with the entity's national agent.
A declaration given by the entity and addressed to the Ministry of Economy of UAE containing the company's undertaking to assume all the financial obligations incurred by the branch office in UAE.
All the above mentioned documents, except financial statements and audit report, are required to be attested by the UAE Embassy in the country of origin. Also the documents must be translated in Arabic and certified by the UAE certified translator. These must then be attested by the Ministry of Justice of UAE.
- The following additional documents must be submitted by the applying entity but these documents do not need to be attested from outside the UAE
Application for license.
Details of operations the entity wants to perform in the Abu Dhabi.
Signed agency agreement (concluded between local agent and foreign entity).
List of major activities performed by the entity outside the UAE and past experience in the activities which the entity intends to carry out in the state.
The statement reflecting the number of people estimated to be employed in the Abu Dhabi's branch office of the entity.
The branch's working capital should not be less than AED 250,000 which may be needed to be deposited in a bank of Abu Dhabi or the UAE Ministry of Economy may require an open ended unconditional bank payment guarantee, provided by a UAE bank, of AED 50,000 in its favor.
Alternatively, a liaison/representative office can be established in UAE but its operations are limited only to the promotion of the activities of its parent entity. This indicates that the liaison offices are only supposed to perform tasks like marketing projects of parent entity, soliciting orders and collecting information. The number of employees in such office is limited to 3 or 4.
Free Zones
The UAE authorities allow foreign entities to function within 'Free Zones'. Full (100%) ownership is allowed in Free Zones. These are subject to lower or different tariffs, quotas and trade barriers. However, the activities of the entities established in Free Zones must be limited to as listed in their licenses. If the entity wishes to operate outside theses limits, it should follow the requirements of the Commercial Companies Law of UAE in compliance with the licensing mechanism in the related Emirate.
Following types of licenses can be issued in Free Zones:
|1- Trading License
|2- Industrial License
|3- General Trading License
|4- National Industrial License
|5- Service License
There are currently 10 Free Zones in the United Arab Emirates. They offer the following inducements to investors:
1- Full foreign ownership (100%) 2- Exemption from corporate tax for fifty years (a renewable concession) 3- Liberty to repatriate total income and capital
4- Full exemption from personal income tax 5- No duties on import 6- No constraints on currency
7- No bureaucratic red-tapism 8- No issues regarding recruitment 9- Latest efficient system of communication
10- State of the art infrastructure 11- Ample energy
Type of Entity:
Three types of entities can be established in any Free Zones:
1- A foreign entity's branch 2- FZE (Free Zone Establishment) 3- FZCO (Free Zone Company)
Foreign investors can fully own these types of entities with no sponsor or local partner required. Prior approval from relevant authorities may be required for some activities.
If the entity wishes to trade within Mainland of UAE then it would require a company of UAE as trade agent and also a custom duty of 5% shall be imposed if the goods are exported to Dubai from Free Zone. There is no requirement for agent and nor any duty is imposed if the trade is carried outside of UAE.
The documents which are necessary for the establishment of entity either as FZC or FZE are:
Planned trade name
Planned activities with a summarized business plan
Passport copies of manager and director
Passport copies of shareholders
Bank references on shareholders
To establish a branch of a foreign entity in Free Zone, following documents are required:
Certificate of incorporation
Memorandum of association
Resolution from the board of directors approving the branch opening in Free Zone of Dubai and appointing manager as in charge of branch
Power of attorney in the name of Manager
Passport copies of the Directors and Manager
All of the above listed items except copies of passport need to be attested by the UAE Embassy in the home country of the applying entity and also by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dubai.
Civil Company
Civil companies can be currently formed in Sharjah and Dubai only. These entities can be established as sole traders which operate under a license. These cannot be established within Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Usually civil companies are not established for the purpose of trade (transport, finance, banking, contracting, purchase and sale of goods etc.) and are usually used by professions.
Commercial Agency Agreement
Under commercial agency agreement, a UAE agent represents a foreign entity and buys, sells or provides services and goods and services in UAE on the company's behalf for a profit or commission. The agent must be a UAE national person or a company fully (100%) owned by UAE nationals. Further the agent must be registered with the Ministry of Economy. Unless agreed otherwise between the agent and foreign entity in writing, the agent has a right to receive commission on the company's sales in his designated Emirate even if the sales are not made through him.
Other Business Opportunities
Below mentioned are some other business opportunities available in UAE:
Offshore Companies:
The foreign companies can establish JAFZ (Jebel Ali Free Zone) offshore companies since the introduction of regulations for JAFZ offshore companies in 2003. Such entities enjoy the same advantages as other global offshore jurisdictions. Since 2006, Ras Al Khaimah has permitted the formation of offshore companies.
Public Sector Procurement:
Every Emirate has its own set of regulations regarding the government procurement activities. The work related to public sector is usually granted as per the public tender law which requires minimum standards relating to government procurement across the UAE. Public Defense Contracts have their own industry specific regulations.
Specialized Economic Zones:
There are specialized economic zones (as established by Zones Corp in Abu Dhabi) in the UAE which encourage investment by providing incentives such as administrative assistance, reduced infrastructure costs, simple approval processes and residential cities for the workforce etc. The companies which are established in the specialist economic must adhere to the requirements of the UAE Commercial Companies Law including the requirement of having 51% UAE control.
Dubai Fast-Track License:
This fast-track trade license is currently being offered by the Department of Economic Development which remains valid for 120 days. This facilitates the companies as they get extra time for the completion of documentation for their registration and licensing. It also allows companies to hire employees, establish new ventures and test their products. Business owner's past working record and legal rental contract are pre-requisites for the license. Further information can be obtained from Department of Economic Development in Dubai.
The above mentioned details serve as general guidelines; our Expert Team of Professional Consultants is based in Dubai and able to talk to you 24/7 and meet you, to assist in exercising the due diligence and specific guidance.
A dedicated Partner can be reached at [email protected] or at +971 50 395 8931 to discuss your requirements for company formation in detail and we will ensure that you are served in the best way.

subset: commoncrawl


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Dear International Students,
Those of you who are attending the GSA MT event, we will be meeting at the cyber building at 11:00 am tomorrow and will leave shortly. Do not be late or you'll be left behind! Also, please bring extra clothes for sport activities(soccer,dodge ball) , pajamas, a tooth brush, a towel and sandals. See you all tomorrow!


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Individual Instruction On-Court Workout 6/12/2014
Low & Slow Defensive Slide Bounces
This defensive drill is one of the best drills you can do, almost daily, to improve foot quickness and length strength. One of my players told me today it is one of the most tiring drills we do. As the player bounces (feet should bounce about an inch) they SLOWLY move laterally. Goal is to stay as low as possible in a defensive stance with chest up and arms out for the entire drill. We repeated this drill for a total of two times.
(See video below Defensive Slide Closeouts)
Low & Slow Defensive Step-Slides
Player starts in the corner and must sit down low in a defensive stance. Goal is to stay as low and move as slow as possible. This drill is a great leg strengthener if performed correctly. Today my guys went a little quick; I want them to slide even slower than shown in the video below. Player takes a small step with leading leg and then slides rest of body to catch up. It is key that your players do not bob up and down, staying low on each step-slide.
(See video below Defensive Slide Closeouts)
Defensive Slide Closeouts
To finish out our defensive segment we did a defensive closeout drill. Player starts by taking two explosive steps and then stutters to closeout with high hands (the closeout is the diagonal line below). After closing out they then slide horizontally to mimic cutting off a driver before closing out again.
Pivot & Footwork Series
This is a pivot series with different finishing moves that I got from Alan Stein's Better Basketball footwork video. I only used a few from the video but there are a total of 36 so I definitely recommend you check it out. Player starts at the baseline elbow and throws a self pass to the elbow and performs the following series of shots on both sides of the floor. Each player had to make four shots in each series, per side (8 total). Our goal today wasn't to go game speed on every move, the intention was more of teaching the moves and learning the footwork so we can progress over the Summer and improve.
Goal: Make 4 per side (8 total per series).
Series 1: Front Pivot – Rip & Go finish on the opposite side with outside hand
Series 2: Front Pivot – Rip & Go finish on the opposite side with inside hand
Series 3: Front Pivot – Rip & Go into a Pro Hop finish
Series 4: Front Pivot – Rip & Go into a Euro-Step finish
Series 5: Reverse Pivot – Rip & Go finish on the opposite side with outside hand
Series 6: Reverse Pivot – Rip & Go finish on the opposite side with inside hand
Series 7: Reverse Pivot – Rip & Go into a Pro Hop finish
UCLA Pick & Roll 3-Man Shots
As I mentioned earlier in the week, I try to incorporate shots out of our offense in my drills. Here is another example of getting shots up out of the UCLA Pick & Roll play. As the ball-handler came off the pick, I tried to provide resistance with a bump to make the drill more game like. We did not have a goal for number of makes in this drill. We went for approximately five minutes per side. Once I was happy with the number of shots up and execution, we had to make all three shots in a row before finishing.
Half-Court Shuttle Drill
This drill is one that I got from Better Basketball's March Madness Extravaganza (March 7). Alan Stein shared this drill from a story he was told about a workout with legendary shooting coach Dave Hopla and Kobe Bryant.
- You need 1 ball and 1 person to rebound and pass
- Set up a cone at mid-court and 2 cones at the free throw line extended (3 feet from sideline)
- Start at mid-court and sprint for a jump shot at the free throw line
- Sprint back to the mid-court cone, then sprint to either outside cone for another jump shot
- Sprint back to mid-court, then sprint to the other cone for a jump shot
- Lastly, sprint to mid-court, and sprint in to finish with a dunk or lay-up
- If you miss any shots, you continue until you make the shot from that spot.
- Record your best time. A good time is less than 21 seconds on an NBA court.
Today the first player up did this drill in 25 seconds on his first attempt.
Goal: Finish the drill.
Posted on June 12, 2014, in Today's Bounce and tagged Basketball Drills, Basketball Training, Basketball Workout, Defensive Drills, Drills, Finishing Drills, Individual Instruction, Passing Drills, Shooting Drills. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
I am thoroughly enjoying the individual series Kyle. Keep up the great work and spreading the knowledge!
Just curious, what exactly is the purpose of the Defensive Slide Bounces? Does it have anything to do with the way you teach on ball defense?


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4 available


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4-Bet and 5-bet pots are the largest pots in poker and they're as complex as they are important. Nailing down the specifics is crucial in 4-bet and 5-bet pots, where the inflated pot sizes have a massive effect on your bottom line.
Think you're a preflop ninja? Take our quiz "Are You A 4-Betting/5-Betting Ninja?" below and find out if you make the cut!
Are You A 4-Bet Ninja?
Choose the best play offered for each situation. You are 100 Big Blinds deep in all hands and readless unless otherwise noted.
Live $2/$5 in a casino. You raise to $20 from the LoJack and a loose player on the Button 3-bets to $65. Which hand would you choose to 4-Bet?
Read more about 4-betting and 5-betting strategy in Ryan Fee's article There's Big Money in 4-Bet & 5-Bet Pots.
I used to play a ton of poker. Now, I run the Upswing Poker strategy blog and help out our growing community of Upswing Lab members.


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The Principles of Scientific Management
This paper has been written:
* To point out, through a series of simple illustrations, the great loss which the whole country is suffering through inefficiency in almost all of our daily acts.
* To try to convince the reader that the remedy for this inefficiency lies in systematic management, rather than in searching for some unusual or extraordinary man.
* To prove that the best management is a true science, resting upon clearly defined laws, rules, and principles, as a foundation. And further to show that the fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human activities, from our simplest individual acts to the work of our great corporations, which call for the most elaborate cooperation. And, briefly, through a series of illustrations, to convince the reader that whenever these principles are correctly applied, results must follow which are truly astounding.
This paper was originally prepared for presentation to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The illustrations chosen are such as, it is believed, will especially appeal to engineers and to managers of industrial and manufacturing establishments, and also quite as much to all of the men who are working in these establishments. It is hoped, however, that it will be clear to other readers that the same principles can be applied with equal force to all social activities: to the management of our homes; the management of our farms; the management of the business of our tradesmen, large and small; of our churches, our philanthropic institutions our universities, and our governmental departments.
Keywords: management;scientific management;the principles of scientific management;tradebit
File Size: 70 KBytes
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National Technical Engineer
|Job Title:
|National Technical Engineer
|Contract Type:
|£45k - 50k per year + Pension
|Start Date:
|Contact Name:
|Muhnad Ali
|Contact Email:
|Job Published:
|May 18, 2018 16:59
Job Description
National Technical Engineer
Salary: £45,000 - £50,000
Location: Nottingham
This industry leading company are looking to recruit for a National Technical Engineer, this role will require you to travel to numerous sites in the UK and be involved in training engineers, organising fittings of new machinery and also to get involved in the repairing, servicing and practical maintenance of the new machinery. This is a excellent opportunity for a experienced engineer to become more specialist and work on some very interesting and bespoke machinery. You will be offered a excellent salary package and will be given a company car so you can travel from sites to site.
Skills required for the National Technical Engineer:
- National Technical Engineer must have an HND qualification or equivalent
- National Technical Engineer must have experience working within a manufacturing environment
- National Technical Engineer must have experience with Planned Maintenance & Breakdowns
The National Technical Engineer will benefit from:
- Working Monday to Friday
- You will receive a company car
- Working on bespoke machinery
- Excellent salary & benefits package
Benefits: Pension, Healthcare, Progression
For further details please contact Muhnad Ali
If you are interested in this role and feel that you have the right skills, then please click apply at the bottom of this advert.
As a registered candidate with Pioneer Selection Ltd, you automatically become eligible for our referral scheme.
You will receive £250 for every candidate we place in permanent employment who has been recommended by you. Terms and Conditions apply please see our website for further details.
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"A lot of people are afraid of success because they are afraid of failure."
In this podcast me and William chew the fat around creating ideal mindset. William is incredibly positive, driven and most all, motivating. If you're in need of something to fire you up, this conversation will go above and beyond your expectations
Show William some love at…


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There isn't any good reason why you should have to deal with the effects of being crashed into by a distracted driver. These drivers made the choice to take their attention away from their driving duties to focus on something else. When an accident occurs because of this, the driver who was distracted must be held accountable.
Don't let distracted drivers get off too easily
Don't forget to drive safely in the snow and on the ice
Driving on the snow and ice is much different from driving on dry pavement. Because of the dangers of driving in these conditions, you need to make sure that you are taking precautions that will help you and everyone else around you to return home safely at the end of the day. While you can be as safe as possible on your end, you also count on everyone else to be just as safe.
Slipping on ice or snow can be dangerous
Now that the winter season is here, you need to make sure that you are preparing correctly for walking out in the elements. Of course, you need to try to prevent hypothermia by having the proper winter weather gear, but the need for this goes far beyond this.
Staying safe while driving in winter weather conditions
It is winter, which means that drivers in Colorado will likely have to drive in snowy or icy conditions at some point. Most people who live in the state have experience driving in less-than-ideal conditions during portions of the year. Even drivers who have driven on icy roads should remember to stay safe.
Colorado has laws that govern snow removal on sidewalks
Snow and ice are difficult to walk across. In fact, some people who aren't very steady on their feet, such as the elderly, might have more of a risk of falling on these surfaces. Even though it might not seem like a big deal to fall on snow, you can actually suffer from serious injuries when this happens.
An accident with an uninsured driver is salt in your wounds
Perhaps you were in the hospital when you learned that the driver responsible for your accident did not have auto insurance. This news may have felt as if someone crashed into you a second time. Colorado and nearly all other states in the country mandate auto insurance for every driver, so what happens when one driver without insurance breaks the law?
Take action when you are a prisoner to a brain injury
A brain injury can make you a prisoner in your own body. The changes that you can experience after one can make it seem like you are living a totally different life than what you were living before. Even if the injury wasn't particularly serious, the impacts might be.


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Yesterday night we went to see The Passion of The Christ in an 'exclusive preview' in Almere.
What did I think of it… actually, I don't know. It touched me, but probably not as much as I had expected. It was more biblical than I thought, but yes, there was quite a number of catholic, mystic and theatrical elements in it. It made me re-read the true story in the gospels when we got home – it struck me how many conversations in the movie are taken litterally from the Bible – but it is indeed a Mel Gibson version of the gospels. It struck me how well movie techniques like flashbacks fitted into the story. And yes, it confronted me with the fact that Jesus died innocent, for me. He went through all this for me…
The strength of the movie (the confrontation with the suffering of Christ) is also its weakness. By showing only a portion of the whole story of Jesus, you don't get to know Him throughout the movie. All of a sudden, there is this man being beaten and tortured, making you wonder why this all is happening – especially when you're not so much into christianity. At the same time, this is an intriguing question that hopefully makes people go look for the answer.
An interesting question is whether the emphasis on the physical suffering is (biblically) correct. The movie exposes every cruel detail of the beating, whipping, torturing, crucifixion. This is very much opposite to the Bible, that is very reluctant in the description of the suffering: "…after He was scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified.". But, when you think of it, the suffering was as real as it was shown in the movie: scourging must have torn Jesus' back apart, it must have taken forever… "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities […] we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." So, it that sense, I guess it is not incorrect to visualise it.
But I think there is another (psychological) effect that cannot be ignored. The movie hits you hard. However, the more you see the movie with the cruelty and suffering in detail, the less the impact is. It's sad but it's true: you will get used to it. On the other hand: the more you read the story from the Bible, the more it will impact you, simply because each separate verse has a whole story behind it. You'll need to do some effort to get the picture, but I think when you get it, it has more of a lasting effect. Probably that is the strenght of the written word, and that is why the Bible is written as it is.
Can I put it like this: the movie hits you hard but short, the Bible hits you slowly but surely?
Do you have to see it? My answer is no. For a blood-red picture of Jesus and a headstart introduction to the meaning of the cross: yes, go see it. For a full-color picture of Him and in-depth understanding of the story of God and man, reading the bible and learning from Christians is probably a better way.
But then again: many will see it. If we, Christians, want to be prepared for the questions, want to be able to introduce Jesus and the full gospel to them, maybe it is a good idea to go and see.
And as I said: it touched me, but probably not as much as I had expected. Is this because of the movie or because of me? Was I really open to be impacted? Do I really understand what Jesus went through? Can I even remotely relate to his suffering? I am still wondering…