Cooper Industries Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Cooper Industries part-time for less than a year

Pros – were really nice, organized, helpful, I liked how they were always willing to do whatever would make you feel the most comfortable

Cons – were very rude and very imposing on your life and did not accommodate you or care what your opinion was, always selfish

Advice to Senior Management – no thanks.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Cooper Industries full-time for more than a year

Pros – There aren't a lot of positive words that describe Cooper.

Cons – Large corporation with poor employee moral.

Advice to Senior Management – Develop internal talent

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Cooper Industries full-time for more than a year

Pros – The work is fairly easy and there was always a lot to do. Most mid-level managers are good to work with and have a strong work ethic but need some development. The work environment is very customer driven.

Cons – There were too many open positions that management either did not want to fill or were unable to fill. Seems like it was a shell game trying to cover all of the openings with the same people. Very surprising that they could not attract people given the state of the economy.

Advice to Senior Management – Decide what you want your business to be and build your team around it. Most people want to be a part of it but are tired of the sudden direction changes and last minute ultimatums.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Cooper Industries

Pros – Good and competitive compensation, stable job if you desire it, medium-large company with opportunity for growth or promotion to management position

Cons – Job is stressful, they overwork you sometimes 60-70 hours a week with very demanding orders, management does not satisfy workforce and their desires

Advice to Senior Management – There needs to be more incentive to listen to employees and work with them, they need to be more understanding and be less demanding of workload

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Cooper Industries

Pros – It’s a strong and growing global company that is safety and environmentally oriented.

Cons – Shameful treatment of employees. All level of management has a tendency to cuss, scream, and yell creating an atmosphere of intimidation. Too many F bombs.

Advice to Senior Management – This goes for all tiers of management and senior management. “You don't show admiration to your employees when you curse, scream and rant, even if its’ not directed at them. Calm down and communicate with respect and stop cussing like sailors. Declaring that it a just a New York way of communicating is not excuse, it poor professional behavior.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Cooper Industries

Pros – Stable company with multi-facetted business approach.

Cons – Shameful treatment of employees. Management has a tendency to shout, scream, and yell creating an atmosphere of intimidation.

Advice to Senior Management – You don't show respect to your employees when you cuss and scream, even if your not directing your comments to them. Calm down and communicate with respect.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Cooper Industries

Pros – Regarding Cooper Notifications side of Cooper Industries.

Lots of responsibility and a lots of work for those type of individuals who like control. Very fast moving envirnoment, with changes happening every hour.

Cons – Regarding Cooper Notifications side of Cooper Industries.

Management

Unrecognized engineering/manufacturing design problems resulted in project management night mares that management didn't know how to respond to, other than throwing more of it's staff under the train.

Advice to Senior Management – Regarding Cooper Notifications side of Cooper Industries.

Management's answer of having the staff to continously improvise and coming up with alternate work around solutions took up more time than putting the rigth resources on the problem.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Cooper Industries

Pros – Job security. If you can put up with the bureaucracy, deliver reasonably acceptable work, not complain and keep your head down, you can stay as long as you like.
Flexibility. The organization is so fractured and decentralized, you can come and go on your own schedule and no one will ever know you were gone.
Easy. Your managers and peers are all "B" players. You never feel like you "cannot keep up". Easy to "wow" management with things that would be standard work procedure at other companies.

Cons – Fractured structure/poor communications
Poor leadership
No challenge
Static environment
Horrible facilities (cinder block buildings with no windows). Note this excludes corporate which is perched atop an ivory tower in Houston.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop running the company as if every division were no more than cash cows. Find ways to kindle a culture of ownership, accountability, involvement and entrepreneurship. CBE offers its employees nothing more than a paycheck and reasonable job security. While this is good, it does not cause employees to view the company as anything other than a feeding trough.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Cooper Industries

Pros – Pay, went from $8.08/hr in 1990 to $17.95/hr by 1996..plus overtime, benefits and retirement etc. Good local folks, good local supervisors. Claimed to have an educational reimbursement program, which with managements encouragement, I took advantage of and began graduate school.

Cons – When the plant manager saw that I was actually going to make it in graduate school, they attempted to "pull the plug" on tuition reimbursement. This was sad considering that jobs were being sent unnecessarily to China......I and others wanted more Activity Based Costing processes, more accurate direct labor and material allocation rates, realistic time studies, common sense machine design and a truly team based working environment. Management managed, Labor worked. That's just the way it was/is, and why certain tool product lines have been train wrecked all the way to China.....

Advice to Senior Management – When you have a solid employee that works THIRD SHIFT in order to gain a graduate degree (that you pay for), promote them, they have earned it.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Cooper Industries

Pros – Cooper Industries is a very large growth oriented company that pushes its employees to deliver on it's deliverables. Salary scales kept up with the Industry and reviews were given based on performance and freqency of salary increases were given based on whereyou were on the salary graph. I enjoyed the travel and the treatment I received in the beginning but as time progressed, the CEO and upper management traveled first class while the engineers were asked to travel economy class on long flights to China

Cons – Cooper Industries slashed pesonnel wthout consulting the management that was in direct contact with the offshore plants. Employees that gave up family time travelling for the bozo's in the Upper Management, did not give a damn how much the employees sacrificed. many employees gave up lot of family time, neglected their fmilies because of the 25 to 50% travel requirements. But when the time came to reward these employees, they were laid off with severance packages that amounted to nothing more than 10 weeks of pay.

Advice to Senior Management – Before laying off people that travel to support your off shore facilities for good many years, review their performace before randomly laying off people. The hard working groups of people were laid off and the do-nothing group of people are still working for Cooper Industries.

Your company rewards people for laziness and punishes the people who gave up a lot family time to set up your off shore plnts and facilities.

I was a victim of your dirty politics after 6 years of service to your company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend