BAE SYSTEMS (United Kingdom) Reviews

Pros

Big company, plenty of projects

Cons

too much bureaucracy not much flexibilities

Advice to Senior Management

the middle management should get to know their employees better

Pros

Managers are very nice. Good place to work for a good work-life balance

Cons

No chances of moving up or getting raises or bonus. Too many upper management politics.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to train the Management on everything.

Pros

Benefits are good. Pay is above average.

Cons

Little to no opportunity for promotion as too many people are ahead of you and are going no where fast. All promotions seniority based, if there are any at all. Most times, they are shuffling around mid-level managers that should have been fired as incompetent/ineffective long ago.

Advice to Senior Management

I have no idea how to fix the problems I see. I think it is just cultural. I will continue to actively look for work elsewhere.

Pros

Business is booming with the war in full force

Cons

Bad supervision
Not enough people in the warehouse

Advice to Senior Management

When a single person that may not be as important comes to you with a problem, treat them as if they are just as valuable as anyone else

Pros

work / life balance
management support - depending on organization and site
competitive salary

Cons

Communication from top down can be non existent depending on site
since Tenix acquisition, processes are a little disjointed....need more integration work

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

Great carrer opportunities and challenging tasks. Benefits are satisfying and good work really pays off. The career paths are clear and most employees seems to stay in the company many years which must be seen as a good grade of the company

Cons

There is a need to be more agile as a company. In general, there is a need for a competence shift to meet the new, challenging market demands.

Advice to Senior Management

.

Pros

it was very interesting working for bae systems. lots of benefits and perks to working here. employees are all polite and enthusiastic

Cons

the job seemed to be too much of an office space job. boss did not really keep track of all of my assignments

Advice to Senior Management

be sure to hire better management, especially trained bosses that keep track of all of their employees in their department line

Pros

Good benefits and pension scheme.
Reasonable canteen food at most sites.
Reasonable line managers and project managers.
Standard 8-to-5 work hours.
A good place to end your career rather than start one.

Cons

Very little empowerment of employees. Software engineers have far more responsibilities at other technology/enginerring companies.
Little opportunity to move into different roles unless you want to move to a different site. Some people have been in the same job for more than 9 years and should move to another project, except that management can't find any suitable replacements.
Software tools are slow and ancient. Technology used is at least 10 years old (5 years if you're lucky).

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of some sites that are not cost-effective to run. Ensure that the most profitable sites get the right type of work.

Pros

- Excellent support with training and development, encouraged to do as much as possible
- Due to the Company being so large and diverse then if you are unhappy in your current role there is bound to be something somewhere which suits - worldwide opportunities in a variety of functions and business units
- Salary pretty good at lower grades, however not so competitive at management level

Cons

- Inconsistencies between business units with regards to pay, promotion and benefits. Understand this is hard to manage with such a large company but it can be dis-heartening when you see colleagues in other business units getting regular pay increases and larger bonuses when this is down to business unit policies rather than an individuals performance
- Senior management organisation is not very diverse

Advice to Senior Management

- Continue with the strong focus on training and development
- Look at ways of improving diversity within the general workplace and senior management
- Ensure the opportunities for moving people between business units is maximised to its full potential and that appropriate support is given

Pros

- Recognition for good work and hard work.
- Good company pension scheme.
- Excellent work/life balance.
- Some excellent managers/leaders at the very top.
- Very good communication of management/company objectives.

Cons

- Benefits vary too much from site to site.
- Suffers too much from brain drain - need to recruit and retain good enginners.
- Security policies stifle innovation, conflict with business agility and have too much negative impact on productivity.
- Some very average managers/leaders at the top who move from role to role doing very little.

Advice to Senior Management

- Do not assume that process improvement will fix everything - your people are your assets.
- Documentation is not a substitute for expertise/experience.
- Employ better business development managers to bring in business, but also recognise that you need better engineers to avoid project overruns and to deliver high quality products.
- Your line managers and middle managers do not adequately implement policies from higher up.
- Motivate engineers to conform to the high performance culture . There are too many 9-5ers who turn up to get paid.