ARINC Reviews

Former Employee – worked at ARINC full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – - 70+ year history of corporate pride and accomplishment (except for last several)
- Career diversity and some great employees still remaining

Cons – - Executive management unethical and motivated only by self interest.
- Catastrophic loss of 10+ year employees last several years and steep decline in business and moral
- Nepotism throughout upper management
- Many of the strongest leaders and leadership candidates no longer with company
- Future unknown as company needs to rebuild from the top down

Advice to Senior Management – Retire!

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

Former Employee – worked at ARINC full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Used to be a great company that treated employees well until The Carlye Group purchased the company and it went down hill from there.

Cons – Executive leadership is very poor and is not honest with employees. There is no strategic outlook and the focus is EBIT and cash for stakeholders.

Advice to Senior Management – Sell the company as fast as you can

– I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at ARINC

Pros – Do not have to have qualifications to get job since they put anyone in a position without no relevant work experience.

Cons – - Poor management direction
- Pay is very low so they typically hire individuals with little or no experience
- Do not listen to staff on best practices
- Plays favorites with certain employees - especially if your personality is what they like
- Got some real idiots leading management - no or little experience in the areas they lead

Advice to Senior Management – Up your pay scale, hire talented people with right skill sets, stop your mgt's corrupt and incompetent direction.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at ARINC

Pros – Very profitable company. Maybe more management oriented in the corporate office. Outlying offices need more oversite by upper management. Employees are not treated fairly.

Cons – Office outside of corporate have no HR to report issues. Mangement does whatever it wants. Does not develop people, and low balls people on salary.

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in your people, and get some HR in your offices. People need to know that they can talk to someone with out losing their job.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – 1) Commuting can be very pleasant if you live on this side of MD. Some departments are better to work in. At least so I'm told.

2) Flexible hours. Alternative Work Schedule (AWS)

Cons – ARINC is currently waiting for a buyer, and it seems like the only employees that are hanging around are the ones that were just hired and/or the ones that still draw a pension. Here is what I observed in my time there:

1) Nepotism - : favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship
This is ramped at ARINC. You will most likely not have a good career advancement due to this practice. Many employees (family members) are getting positions they are not qualified for. It has completely undermined the moral.

2) Signs of Corporate Pathology? - I've found that many (expensive) decisions are made based on private personal agendas no matter if it's good for the company or not. In my department as an example, the clients weren't even consulted on buy in for major changes to make sure they were ok with the ongoing cost.

3) Work Place Diversity - I also noticed there are VERY FEW minorities in leadership roles. I have not seen this to this extent in other work environments. I just thought it might be worth mentioning.

4) No Management Meetings - The employees NEVER get updates with management on what's going on. No management meetings with the employees, performance goals and bonus have diminished to non-existent for those that are on the front line and are reserved for the middle to upper managers.

5) Uneven Workload - I frequently ran into situations where there is one employee that is doing the majority of the work in their departments. When that employee is out, there are severe gaps in the productivity due to the single threaded nature of the organization.

6) Frequent re-organizations - It seems to be about 1 to 2 re-orgs per year. The entire department anxiously awaits to see who your new boss will be for that part of the year to see how your ongoing projects are affected.

Advice to Senior Management – Properly train the staff OR hire competent managers to lead the organization's department. I'd most likely favor the latter. Stop the nepotism. It's really tearing the company apart. It's no secret that investing in good people will take the company further in the long run. ARINC seems to not understand that, or just plain doesn't care anymore! Many of the CONS has grown from inexperienced management.

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 ARINC full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Flexible work schedule, good people working at the levels below management.

Cons – Senior leadership is completely out of touch. People are just numbers. Promotion is largely impossible unless you are part of the good ole' boy lunch crowd. If you are, you don't even have to know what you are doing, you are safe. If not, you can work like a rock star and still be on top of the layoff list. Its all about EBITDA and saving every penny. Benefits have been cut, salaries have not kept up with COLA. Upper management continues to beat on the workers and not give bonuses/raises, yet they drive their high dollar sports cars to work and take leisurely lunches. Employees are told to keep key information from customers. Ethics are slipping. Human resources is basically controlled by the good ole' boys, so no need to try and go to them for help or advise. If you do, you will be immediately blacklisted. Total uncertainty from a career standpoint. Sad to be looking elsewhere, but want out before it implodes.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to the employees and invest in what is needed to do the work.

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 ARINC full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – -Promotes Diversity
-Encourages Work/Life Balance with Alternate Work Schedule (if manager approves). Which allows you to work longer days and have every other Friday off
-Flexible start time

Cons – -Company is up for sale so future is unknown
-Layoffs have occurred in the past year
-Employee Holiday party cancelled
-Benefits used to be good but not anymore
-Advancement based on who you know

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 ARINC

Pros – Still the best benefits of any company.

Cons – Lost vision, unfocused direction, poor communications.

Advice to Senior Management – Communicate effectively with employees and instill a vision of the future.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at ARINC

Pros – Salaries are ok, but the benefits package has been very good (though not as great as it was before ARINC was purchased by Carlyle).

ARINC has been very flexible with their hours as long as you treat your customer and duties with the appropriate level of attention and diligence that they deserve.

ARINC has very rarely attempted to micromanage employees, and this is generally not a problem.

Cons – ARINC has lost its way since it was purchased by Carlyle. The company has gone through some major re-organization. In many ways ARINC has been top heavy with too many managers and not enough workers, and ARINC had a good opportunity to re-organize in a smart way. However, ARINC seems to have blown the opportunity and re-organized solely on the basis of current EBITDA without a real plan for the future. It got caught up in becoming an Aircraft Modification and Integration company and didn't invest properly in its Engineering and Technical services capabilities. In the middle of the recession, instead of diversifying itself, ARINC tried to narrow its line of business into an already saturated market. At the same time, Carlyle has gone through cycles of wanting to sell all or parts of the company, so in those times ARINC often restricted capital investment in products. The result is that morale has dropped significantly in the last 3 years at ARINC, and a good bit of the talent has left the company. ARINC seems to be at a point where they are bidding on business that they do not have the capability to perform with the hopes that they can hire off the street talent to do the work if it comes in.

Advice to Senior Management – Communication within the management chain and the business development area needs improvement. ARINC needs to realize that strong engineering talent is hard to come by in the market, and that even strong talent takes time to familiarize itself with your products, services, and processes in order to become effective. To be able to compete, ARINC needs to invest in its products and services rather than relying on developing these things on the customers dollar. A research and development budget would go a long way towards sustaining success.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at ARINC

Pros – Flexible hours
Potential for fun work depending on funding availability

Cons – Carlyle & Senior management are ruining this company. Company has been meeting goals every year, yet raises/bonuses are poor and benefits keep declining. Nothing is worse than getting the "great job on meeting goals we couldn't have done it without all your hard work" speech, and then a few days later getting an email stating that once again benefits will be reduced in order to make the company stronger. What a bunch of BS, it's all about Carlyle greed. Sr management obviously doesn't understand many of the business units, nor do they listen to inputs from those who work directly with customers. There is not much job security, if you loose tasking you will most likely be let go. Morale is low and not getting any better. I thought I would stay with this company until retirement, but now after 15 years I'm reconsidering. This company has become another example of overpaid CEO/Wall Street type greed.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop trying to sqeeze every penny of profit out of this company and get back to basics of keeping employees and customer happy.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend