AAF-McQUAY Reviews

Current Employee – been working at AAF-McQUAY

Pros – People are very friendly to work with. There is a fair amount of veterans of the company who has been with the company for 20 to 40 years. They really knows the business. However they are all retiring soon.

Cons – From marketing to R&D, the company need to invest much more to compete with others. If look at the AAF history prior to 90s, you know why the company is successful then. We are the leader for innovation, massive marketing department, best industry knowledge of know how. These days, it is all eliminating products can't sale without adding new product into product line fast enough. The brand name is still strong, however we need strong leadership. Some of the senior management team is not knowledge enough to lead the company, divisions, or groups.
HR department need to spend a little more to find the best people in the industry or train its own young team member.

Advice to Senior Management – Spend more on training employee. Bring them to conference, industry association, trade show. Push harder in emerging market.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AAF-McQUAY

Pros – The people are good to work with, and things are fairly laid back on a day to day basis. There is an overall good atmosphere to work in, with the bad things usually are nothing more than petty office politics that seldom rise above the "annoyance" level.
Individual people really care that what they do actually helps and supports the customer.

Cons – McQuay has a top notch product, but there is little drive to improve the office to match what is the real world product output of the equipment. A large number of people have been there 20+ years and while the factories produce, the management seems content to coast when it comes to the support of that product.

Advice to Senior Management – Daikin bought McQuay and they have clearly made improvements to the factories and products to among the best in the industry. However there seems to be a fear to look at the management of the headquarters. There is a real need to step up what is done to support their customers after the initial sale. This is a lost opportunity that is given away to their competitors who kept up with communications better than McQuay.
Change the focus to what is best for the customers, not what is easy for the office. There are improvements in computers and technology that they need to learn to use in the office, not just talk about- as what McQuay has works, but it is highly fragmented.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AAF-McQUAY

Pros – Employees are treated fairly.Good communication from the corporate office. Bought out by Daikin, who has deeper pockets for future growth.

Cons – Poor leadership at the regional levels. The corporate HR manager has too much decision making power with very little knowledge of the industry. Company is too slow to acknowlege warranty problems with equipment already in the field.

Advice to Senior Management – Hopefully Daikin has better leaders and vision.

Former Employee – worked at AAF-McQUAY as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Most co workers are very friendly and have worked for the company for over 20 years

Cons – Lack of real leadership and mico management at it's WORST. Has to be the quietest place ever. On a floor with over 200 people, at any given time you can hear a pin drop. All you hear is typing on the computer and seeing co workers with their headsets in listening to music or live radio. No room at all to move up. Lack of respect and could care less about raise promises made. Way over worked and totally underpaid.

Advice to Senior Management – Cut from the top down. Start with the most incompetent HR department I have ever worked with. Your cash & credit department are a total mess and the SAP transfer was a total 6 month nightmare. It should have been implemented in other countries where the branches are before we trusted all our cash info to be screwed up during the SAP going "live" what a joke

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AAF-McQUAY

Pros – The day to day employees are like family. They have great value and pride. The location and office at corporate are nice.

Cons – Executive leadership lacks but that has recently changed. HR must go to make it a choice employer, Daikin should sell the AAF portion of the company and keep McQuay. They need to make some drastic head count adjustments again.

Advice to Senior Management – They need to focus of streamlining strategy if they want to make a go for profit. Reduction in sites is a must.. Overhead rates are high. Make the cuts and quit dancing around. Start in HR top down. Don't be fooled by HRs pleasant responses.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AAF-McQUAY

Pros – Decent pay and benefits. Mostly good people to work with. There are a lot of veterans with very good product knowledge. There is a real desire for growth.

Cons – HR is completely incompetent. One example is when they opened the ADC, HR was in charge of the grand opening and sent out an email a month ahead of time for employees to choose to attend the catered meal. A week before the event they announced that all employees could not park their car on the premises and had to park half of a mile to a mile away. Lets just say that the food ran out halfway through the service.

Senior management has no clue on how to implement Daikin's growth plan. Their best marketing job is to Daikin and the new CEO, not to actual producing and promoting products in the markets necessary for growth. Daikin wants them to be a leader, but McQuay continually operates in niche markets. Part of the veteran employees is that management is also full of long term people who haven't moved on from the micromanaging of the 60's and 70's. Performance is determined by how many hours you are at your desk. Some of the poor middle managers work 12 hour days, partially because the systems are antiquated.

Advice to Senior Management – Daikin wants you to be a leader in the Commercial HVAC market, not the Applied. You have to think bigger than your comfort zone currently is. Clean out the HR department (again) and fix your systems issues. It will take getting rid of some of the long term managers to move forward. You should start with the managers who over-hired. Why are they still there?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AAF-McQUAY

Pros – They do sell some excellent products, probably the best air handler that I know of. They are working hard to develop the product they know is going to keep the company afloat and profitable.

Cons – Poor quality, lack of tools to help you do your job effectively. Lack of support to resolve customer issues in the field. Poor communication. High turnover in technical center.

Advice to Senior Management – Change the manager in the tech center so the talented people stay to help the engineers. Develop tools to automate manual functions that cause a lot of the problems that we have now.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at AAF-McQUAY

Pros – The people are great. Although the majority have been there for 20+ years, they are good people.

Cons – Growth is a dream. It does not happen but to a few. The companies growth plan is a dream. Many competitors will continue to take market share. Don't plan on a bonus or a decent raise.

Advice to Senior Management – Takagi is the silent Japanese leader.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AAF-McQUAY full-time for less than a year

Pros – The employees are friendly, helpful and understanding. Customers are pretty easy to work with.

Cons – The interoffice technology is old and not up to date. They need to upgrade all of the software to bring it into the 21st century. The network is very slow. There is still a lot of paper and they need to put paperless technology into place. The middle management staff need to be hired with the proper credentials and be given training. To much micro managing and testosterone (egos).

Advice to Senior Management – They need to get middle management hired with the proper credentials for the job they are doing. Technology in the offices and the field needs to be upgraded to current software and technology to match the newest technology of the equipment they manufacture.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at AAF-McQUAY full-time for more than a year

Pros – The only thing I can say positive that they have some employees that have managed to keep from being fired.

Cons – They do not hesitate berate an employee in front everyone.

Advice to Senior Management – Supervisors & Managers need training on how to treat fellow employees.

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