Honda R & D Americas Reviews in Raymond, OH

Current Employee – been working at Honda R & D Americas full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Good medical benefits, retirement plan and company sponsored race teams. Great company car lease program and car "evaluation" program.
The company is very stable and offers job stability.
Two complete week's off during the year on top of you vacation.

Cons – The company makes you feel so guilty when you have to leave to take care of personal things, that I even went back to work the day after my wife was released from the hospital after having our second child.
Too many bosses, project manager, group leader, technical manager and they all pull you in a different direction, so is difficult to satisfy them all.
Poor training for new hires.
Excessive overtime (60+ hrs/week) due to managements poor manpower planing.
You will never do a good job, and it doesn't matter whether or not it was your fault, it will ALWAYS be your fault.
Absurd last minute requests that if not done on time, on top of everything else, then you did not do your job right.
Very slow at reacting to market changes creates frustration.
HR has nor control over managers, all policies are at manager's discretion.
In Honda, you are expected to exceed expectation, so when you exceed expectation you are just meeting the expectations.

Advice to Senior Management – You need to learn how treat people because people are not replaceable like you think the are. People's health, physical as well as mental, are more important that that 2 hr long meeting at 7:00PM on a Friday when you are suppose to meet your family (Japanese management does not understand this but American management should.)
Is a divorce worth meeting that schedule? You know, associates have divorced due to the insane requirements.
Honda''s global attitude is perceived as arrogant, and it can also be felt in the work environment.
One last thing, Americans went to the moon and back when no one else did, think about that next time you are going to reject American staff ideas.

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

Current Employee – been working at Honda R & D Americas full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Benefits are good and work hours are relatively flexible.

There are some truly great people and engineers at this company. There is a certain "looseness" about how Honda operates and if you can get on a good project with good leadership and a sound direction, there really are no limits to what can be achieved.

Honda engineers have the chance to work on nearly every stage of a product's live cycle. From research, conceptualization, design, development to production; at Honda you can making a difference from start to finish....

Cons – ....which, in practice, means every document, schedule, part order, 8pm TV conference, simulation, layout check, 3d model, 2d drawing, application update, cost estimation, factory correlation, countermeasure, countermeasure, fire fight, countermeasure, countermeasure, countermeasure.. is all done by one person, or a very small group of persons. Most companies have multiple organizations and departments devoted to handling the workload with experts in any particular field, but at Honda you are expected to do this all mostly on your own. In general this means a Honda engineer will become a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none. And because of this, Honda can't keep pace with the current trends in the industry where the real experts are pushing in directions Honda's associates don't have the time, training, toolset or expertise to follow.

There is a glaring double standard between Japanese / non-Japanese employees. Essentially, if you are a Japanese chief engineer or technical expert you can do whatever you want without any real prospect, calculation, or sound engineering judgment. However, US associates must continue to prove, revise, and re-prove concepts only to have them derailed or cancelled by unsupported Japanese chiefs or management. It's an issue that has less to do with what is best for the company and more to do with who is in control of the company. It doesn't matter if you can save X dollars or increase performance by Y percent or make the customer Z times happier, if you don't have a Japanese chief willing to go to bat for you (or say it was actually their idea), it is simply .. not .. going .. to happen. This means non-Japanese staff have very little *real* control over their own projects or have any real decision-making power. It's very degrading and demoralizing unless you have absolutely no self-will and just want to be told what to do even if it doesn't make any sense. (Note, some departments may be worse about this than others, so your mileage may vary.)

And on top of it all, the single most unbelievable aspect of working for Honda is the amount of lies and backstabbing that goes along in your day to day job. Can't explain your test results? Don't worry, just delete the bad data points or skew the image in powerpoint. Want to get a project approved? Make up a great story and have a "nemawashi" with the entire department. Want to get a project *cancelled*? Make up a great story and have a "nemawashi" with the entire department. Technical documents and evaluations are full of truths, half-truths, and absolute lies and that is what a new associate is supposed to be using as the foundation of their career. It becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction. But, if you keep repeating that fiction enough times and to enough people and build up enough support, then lies will start to become truth.

A lot of these issues are, of course, culturally based. US staff are given cross cultural training to attempt to understand the Japanese mindset (which has been completely segregated from other cultures, Western included, for most of it's history) but this seems to only go one way. If you are right but going against a group of Japanese.. GOOD LUCK. It doesn't matter if you are right, it only matters what the group thinks even if what the group thinks is killing the companies long term position.

Alone, most of these issues could be tolerable, but in combination it makes for a very difficult, stressful, and frustrating work environment.

Advice to Senior Management – This company is in major need of a restructuring and a rebirth. Nearly every automotive product is uncompetitve by the numbers and sales have only stayed where they are due to the brand image that was built by better managed engineers decades ago. Once the consumer market starts to catch on that something is wrong at Honda (as the critics already have) that is when things are really going to start falling apart.

Until then, good engineers will continue to leave and Honda will continue to stagnate in a market that has become intensely competitive.

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

Current Employee – been working at Honda R & D Americas full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Great name plate; excellent stepping stone for next employment. Good benefits and clean environment to work in. Pays overtime and good bonus.

Cons – Advancement opportunity and promotion of false expectation. Misleading and dishonnest management, Performance rating based on "feeling judgement". Not the place to work for those who are looking to advance and build a solid career.

Advice to Senior Management – Performance measurement needs to be more concrete and absolute. Managers need to understand the core values of Honda, what it once stood for.

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

Current Employee – been working at Honda R & D Americas full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Looks good on my resume when I apply to better companies

Cons – OT requirements are out of control.
Management is too disconnected. Some managers really do care and want to help, but are either too busy or are too far removed to understand the concerns.
Salary, while recently improved, is still far below other place I have been interviewing with.
Expect way too much. If you pull off the work load, you are reward with more work. If you don't pull it off, you are looked down upon.

Advice to Senior Management – I know you have a lot of problems to deal with right now, but more focus needs to be put on the associates. We currently have some good people here with some great capability. Once those people leave, it doesn't matter what you do. All of your products will fail.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Honda R & D Americas

Pros – Reputation of products within the industry is good, easy to enjoy and support the products produced, knowledge gained is unmatched, all work is very hands on and direct

Cons – Company structure is very flat which produces very few promotions or advancement opportunities for young engineers, high emphasis is placed on time spent at the company compared to qualifications (advanced degrees, work output, certifications, etc.), salary is barely competitive with industry and requires LARGE amounts of paid (straight rate) overtime (10~15hrs/week) to achieve modest paychecks, project schedules create high stress levels and poor work/life balance

Advice to Senior Management – Please work to reduce turnover of young (3~5 yr. experience) associates, these people have high level of knowledge and skill but are not rewarded accordingly, need to keep them in the company in order to improve design efficiency (reduce time to train new employees in Honda's "way" of doing things),

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend