Pros
- Office personnel can work remotely in case of emergencies
- Work schedule is flexible as long as you work required hours.
- Lenient environment. As long as you try your best, it is good enough for them.
- Free coffee
Cons
As a former employee for almost 15 years, here are my shared experiences.
- New management is very nepotistic. Job opportunities are advertised internally but again, if you aren't in their favor, your skills don't matter.
- Very sink or swim environment. Training is nonexistent here. You may be lucky to shadow someone but if you don't catch on quick, find a backup plan.
- As a ME Tech, I did the same level of work as the MEs but would never get the recognition or label as a Manufacturing Engineer.
- No annual raises, no merit raises. They developed a tier system that is very gatekeeping. They will not help you develop your skills to get them done. Even if you get them done, there are no promises that you'll get a salary increase. Instead, they sell the profit-sharing idea as a comparable for raises... which is very rare in the past few years.
- Too lenient. People have forgotten that they show up to "work".
- Lack of knowledge retention. There are a few key players left in that place and once they're gone, it's downhill from there.
- Upper management have very little engagement and lack decision making skills. Several instances where a decision needed to be made and it could take several weeks before someone actually reads their email.
- Their "Gemba walks" are not effective. Very little to no participation from all departments.
- SMEs, "subject matter experts", are not recognized and appreciated as they should be.
- There are a handful of employees that actually work while the others do nothing but talk all day and then management express to everyone that they are at max bandwidth.
- Poor leadership, upper management doesn't have a clue on what actually happens on the floor.
- Too many meetings. They will promote open-door policy but all their doors are closed ALL DAY.
- This place used to be a lean cultured environment but new management doesn't encourage those ideas as strongly anymore.