General Motors (GM) FAQ

Pros

-The people are by far the best part about GM. Everyone on the team I was put on was super welcoming and happy to help when I needed help on things. I was assigned a mentor who was pivotal in helping me learn the systems and get work done. -The benefits in general are pretty good, although with the financial benefits like the 401k match and HSA and relocation benefits all have a long vesting period before you get to keep the extra money. -Lots of days off, with GM being a company that has worked with unions, there are nice extra days off you get off you would not get at most companies, like the two days off around easter and a couple weeks of lighter work in the summer when the plants go down. -GM is willing to help people learn, in terms of offering lots of free resources for you to explore what you would like to if you are in to that, and they offer a subsidy for any advanced education you attend while working at GM -Work life balance was very good, never had to work more than 40 hours, although did have to work at some odd times sometimes, but not a big deal. -The overall company is going in the right direction, they have fully embraced the EV future and are very passionate about it

Cons

-The misuse of the Software Developer title. When hired for the job, they gave me very little information about what I would be doing. They gave me the name of the team I would be joining, but nothing more about the general tasks of the job. I assumed it would be software development given the title, but it was not. The team I was assigned to was focused on IT work and admin work. While at GM, I barely touched any code as a software developer whether it be developing or testing. I feel like this really left a sour taste in my mouth as I felt I was misled the whole time I was there. There is nothing wrong with IT work, however, there is a clear difference between IT work and software development and it was not made clear what the position entailed. -Lots of red tape. It felt like I was spending more of my time getting permissions to do things than actually doing any work. I feel maybe 80% of the the time I spent was navigating the system to do something rather than just doing the work easily. I understand that big corporations have policies that they need to follow, but it is easy to see why startup EV companies like Tesla move much faster and are able to gain a competitive advantage because of this. -Too many meetings. Many times there were meetings set up that could have easily been an email, but a 30 minute meeting had to be set up instead. This led to many team members having their full day just packed with meetings, many of which are general team meetings. For example, the daily standup, which usually takes 5 minutes at other companies took us 30 minutes every day. For this project there were too many people in the standup and too much talking about what peoples problems were during the meeting leading to more time spent wasted if the problem wasn't relevant to you. -Too many systems to learn. There are so many systems at GM to learn, an uncountable number of them to me. It seems like every week there was new fire to put out from something I had never heard. In addition to this, there is no documentation on what system is used for what and how to use the system, leading for more meetings needing to be set up and more time wasted of those who have to explain what a system does and what it is used for. -Pay is low. I get the feeling GM was able to use the pandemic to hire a lot of students at the salary that they could not otherwise because the job market was so tight at the first couple months of the pandemic. I certainly fell into this as I accepted this position at a salary I probably would not have taken if I had other options. Although I can't fault GM for this, they were still hiring while other companies were scared to.

Advice to Management

Be very clear about what the job responsibilities are for people before they take the job. Also, try to cut down on the red tape and number of meetings. So much time is wasted that could be doing real work.

Pros

Wonderful benefits such as healthcare, 401k match, good PTO, extensive paid holidays, annual bonus and merit increase. A great company to work for

Cons

Some groups don’t have as much work life balance. Not many “fun perks”, ex. Offices don’t have free coffee, there is no holiday party, no funds for office events

Pros

Salary, 4% 401k match, yearly bonus + raise, Excellent medical and dental insurance, holidays off, start at 14 days vacation can get up to 30 days

Cons

Generational gap, gender pay gap, lack of accommodations for mentally ill, poor leadership, poor ethics, integrity issues

Advice to Management

Equal pay for equal work. Treat employees as valued individuals, not disposable. Educate staff especially leadership, on mental illness signs/symptoms.

Pros

Competitive pay and bonus opportunities, most groups have good day to day flexibility, nice perks (i.e., company car at certain levels, $1,500 annual HSA contribution, 4% company match on 401K, 12 weeks of maternity and paternity leave).

Cons

Way too many layers of management, hundreds of executives who do not add value, cannot make decisions, and do not generate company profits, small (but consistent) annual merit increases, GM often prioritizes gender and skin color over performance, experience and leadership potential. In many groups, the “appearance” of working hard is valued more than actual work.

Advice to Management

Spend less time trying to make political statements, forcing employees to embrace woke ideology, and making excuses for why we can’t do things our competitors do well. Get back to the humble GM that got us to where we are. Get back to being a bold and innovative car company that builds products that consumers love.

Pros

Decent wage, Free Heath Care, Education benefits (use them and leave!)

Cons

No consistent work, Ineffective union, difficult to get hired permanent, repetitive work, no pension, moving to different states to keep a job, treats workers as incompetent idiots, will seek input from Line workers "bc they care" then dismiss you completely and do what they wanted to do even if it doesn't make sense or work. I could go on and on, but they're are far more cons than pros. Get an education and leave.....

Advice to Management

There is no hope for management to get better. They hire yes men/women who will break every rule just to meet their numbers without any care in who might get hurt in the process. Too much greed, and none of them know how to actually be managers.