Praxair Employee Review

Current Employee – been working at Praxair full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Terrific knowledge base, great commitment to safety, most managers walk the talk, good commitment to integrity, you're able to move into a different career path if you want to and put in the effort, everyone's willing to teach you what they know, great people at every single location including all the plants I've ever been to

Cons – Too risk averse, not willing to fire anyone, some very old school managers that feel there's only one way to get certain jobs (i.e. very difficult to move between technical and sales), not a good internal job change process, overall huge lack of communication, big mismatch in male-female ratio (about 83-17%)

Advice to Senior Management – PLEASE do a better job managing your managers. They are the single worst thing about Praxair. I would say 80% of the salaried workforce are engineers, and most engineers need a lot of help to become good managers; it's just not in their DNA. Many people are promoted into the wrong positions and don't know how to use the power. I don't foresee any change in pay in the future, but especially in a town like Houston where I work, you can't afford to treat people poorly AND pay low salaries. They'll leave.