Philips Healthcare Reviews

I have been working at Philips Healthcare full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – It is a great campus and there are some great people. They do have a good amount of tuition reimbursement, but it is not easy to get approved for it.

Cons – The management structure changes constantly. They come up with a reason every year to either give no raises or limit it to 1-2%. They always talk about how they care about the employees and customers, but every decision comes down to what is cheaper for the company, no matter the consequences. It is no wonder that everyone there has been jumping ship over the last 5 years.

Advice to Senior Management – Go back to how the company was run 5-10 years ago and maybe you will stop loosing all of the talent that made the company successful.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Philips Healthcare full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – The opportunity to work on enterprise-level healthcare solutions.

Cons – Very limited career growth path, highly discouraged by the management. Salary increase and yearly bonuses(if any) are being accorded very subjectively, non-performance based. Any complaints about management are totally ignored by upper management. Management style seems to be more reactive than proactive. Several engineers had to leave the company for the upper management to finally realize there are some issues at the department level and acting upon them still didn't take place. Projects fail because of incompetent architectural designs and employees are being blamed for it instead. Bidirectional communication is officially encouraged but practically inefficient at least and inputs from employees are mostly ignored.

Advice to Senior Management – In my opinion the upper management should seek more often for employee feedback on management style and ways to improve working conditions via anonymous surveys, take prompt actions and also seek a follow-up feedback in the improvements achieved.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Philips Healthcare full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great people to work with, awesome team of FE's, don't want to leave.

Cons – Local RSM making life unbearable, she is a B and no idea what she is doing!! I need a true manager, not a baby sitter, I need leadership, not a dictator, Philips needs to address local area service management, they need to purge all the bad managers, ASAP!!

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of some you, start thinning the heard and giving new managers a chance. No compromise.

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

I have been working at Philips Healthcare full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good Pay and benefits
Friendly employees

Cons – The organization is spiraling down as it attempts right the ship through cost cutting and new slogans like Sense and Simplicity or Accelerate. Can't wait till next years, which will probably be something like Expedite. Unfortunately, despite all of the internal and external marketing dollars spent what we are left with is simply cost cutting and accelerating the head count reductions. There really doesn't seem to be a true strategy but rather a new top ten list of things that the organization says it will do but are not measurable nor tracked. You can't even hire the best talent because in almost every case you are required to hire locally for cost reasons. In the end, I think Philips will be best to continue to keep its stock price low so that someone can come along and buy it with the hope that they turn it into something better.

Advice to Senior Management – New directives, marketing slogans, and leadership reshuffling do not make a better company. A sound strategy that is based on fundamental like exceeding customer and employee expectations is has worked throughout time. Making decisions based on the total value to both your customer and employees will help you measure this and ensure that your ship is heading in the right direction.

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

I have been working at Philips Healthcare full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Have been employed since it was Respironics. When it was a one man show it went rather well, mangers knew your work and cared about you as an individual.

Cons – Since it has become Phillips Respiroinics I have had numerous (3 in the past two years) managers who do not care or know the companies HR policies. Your just a number here and who cares about the time you devoted to making this company grow. Newer employess and managers have all the correct answers so they think.

Advice to Senior Management – Get some trainaing on how to interact with the people you manage. Show some empathy for the issues thayt are dealing wiht in thiser personal lives as well as waht they contribute at work.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Philips Healthcare full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – a job, a paycheck.
immediate counterparts work well together.

Cons – extremely frustrating, too 'constipated' for problem / issue resolve.
HR is a legal 'gestapo' for management dirty work - no worker representation.
currently, have been, losing employees who might have contributed to Philips future - they are young, and fortunate enough, to get out of this company.

Advice to Senior Management – not worth commenting to. previous years of employee concerns not implemented. ridiculous, costly 'improvements' canceled after field use pathetic. hopeful, but doubtful, any miraculous change in this companies practices will change for the better.

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

I have been working at Philips Healthcare full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Good benefits and amenities on site, some of the best managers to work for if you are lucky

Cons – It is to my dismay to see HP Medical, once part of a great company, to go sharply downhill since acquisition by Philips. You can still find pockets of good engineering teams here and there and some of the old "HP way" mold is still around but they steadily and quickly disappear due to repetitive rounds of layoffs and people voting with their feet.
In my many years in the industry I am yet to see corporate culture more antagonistic to engineers than Philips'. "Dime a dozen" or, more likely, "Yuan a dozen", is Philip’s motto when it comes to "individual contributors". From day one they make you feel worthless and replaceable, and emphasize how lucky you must feel to be admitted within twenty mile radius of their shrine. Many are full of hubris and arrogance, which is felt everywhere.
The place is pretty much run by the "good ol' boy" network. They spend their days at coffee stations and behind closed doors playing office poker with each other. Everyone keeps cards close to their chests as it's all about know-who as opposed to know-how.
No matter what your talents or contributions are, you won't get anywhere unless you kiss a lot of a--. Everyone has brown nose and it is pretty much a job requirement.
If you stick your head out, you will find yourself at cross-hairs of a dozen guns for violation of status quo. You are not supposed to think or voice an opinion, just do what you are told to. The boys will take care of you (or so they say), as long as you demonstrate 110% loyalty. Applying to a job outside of your immediate group is usually taken personally, frowned upon and viewed as a breach of loyalty. They sure talk about you behind your back even if the application process is supposed to be confidential.
Much of the product maintenance has now moved to China. Middle management is pretty much held by the balls by the overseas team, completely depending on them for meeting quarterly product goals. Every morning they turn East and pray to the God of "globalization" to please, please continue his favors in return for modest company pay. Many in management are completely clueless and out of touch with reality outside of corporate walls, never worked anywhere besides HP/Agilent/Philips and are mostly driven by fear and complacency.
Once in a while corporate will do a round of drum beating and self praise to boost frail employee morale. But, ironically, Philips being extremely cheap, much of corporate entertainment is done on your own dime (you could skip PYOW after work beer party, but see the above for your career potential).
If you are engaged on a project requiring help from another team (engineering or legal), most of the time your e-and voice mails will go unanswered, unless you think of some kind of quid pro quo or elevate issue to the management chain. If the other team sees you as potential competitor they will try hard to derail your project. Ouch. That hurts. So much for “One Philips”. Or is it “Sense and Simplicity”?

Advice to Senior Management – They know

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

I have been working at Philips Healthcare full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Great life-work balance, lots of amenities onsite (gym, cafe, nice recreational opportunities outdoors), great benefits, OK salary

Cons – Don't expect to make any difference there, even less so than in your typical blue chip company. If you enjoy what you do and like to see an impact of your work, you will be greatly disappointed. Company stays in business by milking its current product lines with a tweak here and there and buying and integrating third party solutions to stay competitive. Mainstream medical device market moves very slowly so this strategy works to a point. They've had their share of layoffs back in 2008 and again last year, and with the new Philips CEO on board and Accelerate! program more are probably coming.
They don't really appreciate your effort unless you put all of it into maintaining status quo and brown nosing your manager and everyone else who you think may be useful to you. People have nice manners on the surface and they are helpful to an extent that requires little or no effort on their part but when rubber hits the road all they really want is to point finger at someone else and make it their problem. Everyone is scared as hell to take on any responsibility outside of their immediate area. The original HP engineering culture that started Silicon Valley has long evaporated post acquisition and was replaced with a new way of thinking of engineers as commodity "resource". I guess this can work for awhile if you are in maintenance mode and all you want is to protect and keep milking your established niche. But this can not be viable long term strategy and I think the new top management realizes it (but if you are close to retirement, why would you care ?).
The company pays OK salaries, but what they fail to understand is that good people are not motivated by money alone. In the end of the day you feel squeezed like a lemon by an endless series of pointless meetings and senseless requests having accomplished absolutely nothing to advance your personal knowledge or your career. Over time and this environment becomes damaging to your sanity and professional development.

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

I have been working at Philips Healthcare

Pros – Let you take time if when needed. Good benefits package.

Cons – You pay it forward, then they don't compensate.

They promote based on a "good 'ole boy" system. If you get in with the right clique, you will be promoted. However, expect your manager to resent you if you decide to move on to a better job outside his/her department.

They put out a yearly employee feedback survey. If you answer with anything other than positive, they will try and "weed" you out, because a manager's performance review is based on his/her survey scores. Also, the manager expects his/her team to develop ways to bring up the scores, The survey is pointless.

Advice to Senior Management – Reward your employees for the hard work they do. Promote people other than those that have become your friends. Eliminate the employee survey, it is pointless. Besides, you would save the company millions.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Philips Healthcare

Pros – The mission of serving healthcare is a good one. The products are generally of good quality. It's a great place to lay low and get paid. There's a lot of tolerance for non-performance so if you have a lot of other things to do - like going to the doctors, taking care of your kids or you get sick a lot, this is a great place to work. Many work at home because they don't need to get out of their PJs.

Cons – Leadership? Where? If you are competent and knowledgeable, you are a threat to your superiors. You will be asked to keep to yourself, not express new solutions and not to stand out if you work here. Those in leadership positions got there because they were willing to do what they were told and fly under the radar screen. This is not the place to work if you want to make a real contribution or if you are an independent thinker. But if you are looking to get a regular paycheck and fly under the radar screen - Philips is for you. Many have survived for more than a quarter century. Just look at how many dedicated parking spaces there are for these folks!

Advice to Senior Management – Empower your people and stop worrying so much about 'being nice'. Sometimes you need to hold people accountable to get results. You have too many weak 'leaders' who have very little experience out of this environment.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend