BAE SYSTEMS (United Kingdom) Reviews

Pros

Good salary and flex time policy. Well supported and most jobs are quite well paced and not too stressful. Projects are quite interesting and good opportunity to move around. Annual bonus and initial welcome payment are a good bonus.

Cons

Some jobs can be boring if not given enough to do. Good work can go unnoticed as it is such a big company.

Advice to Senior Management

Build a bigger gym, canteen and creche facility.

Pros

Interesting work. Very varied, lots of opportunities for challenge, travel and career. Some leading technology, staff commitment.

Cons

Process often prevents work being followed to my satisfaction (and others).
Judgment by targets has frequent unforseen (though entirely forseeable) negative side-effects.
Employees are trained in ethics, but the board has failed to explain the new evidence which changed the company stance from 'no wrongdoing' to accepting wrongdoing overnight in early 2010.

Advice to Senior Management

Target culture. Beware of inadvertently suppressing innovation and invention!
Ethics. Lead by example.
Process - isn't reduced by adding more process.

Pros

The company is large enough to give you a lot of options in a career
Lots of politics but that is the case with all organizations of this size
Very innovative approach

Cons

Some managers are recruited for political reasons and this can make everyones life hard
Projects in this industry take a long time to complete so you may never see the result of your efforts

Advice to Senior Management

If you happen to be a senior manager at a site/regional level, understand that you are NOT the most important person in the business and play as part of the wider team!!

Pros

Good graduate scheme.
Relaxed, professional atmosphere.
Final salary pension scheme.
Good benefits, e.g. holiday allowance, profit sharing.
Excellent work life balance.
Operates a "no blame environment".

Cons

Can be very process oriented and procedural, depending on where you work.
Some teams use less than cutting edge technologies.
At times, the company can be slow moving.
Low staff turnover.

Advice to Senior Management

Management can be quite conservative and risk adverse.

Pros

BAES is a good stepping stone from military life to civilian work for any ex-serviceman. The support given in the early days is good and very familiar.

Cons

It's far too much like still being in the military.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the guys who know what they are doing and not the people with their hands on teh purse strings. This is supposed to be an engineering company, not a bank.

Pros

- Good starting salary for graduates.
- Some interesting work, if you can get it. I was on a good project that was fun but most work at BAE Systems is very boring right now. [They currently have senior software engineers doing CM work].

Cons

- Other than initial graduate pay the salaries here are a lot lower than similar defence companies in the area.
- Senior management treat you like a mushroom (keep you in the dark and feed you cr*p). I can't recall the last time I attended a large meeting where senior managers didn't make up some lie about how good things were when in fact they hadn't won any bids for ages.
- There are a significant number of senior people who circulate in the same high-level jobs and screwing up everything they touch. These managers are only there to help each other with perks (eg, approving travel for each other's familes on company expenses) whilst consistently failing to perform their actual duties.

Advice to Senior Management

Fire the senior managers who are making obvious rorts of the system and put in some competent people who actually want to work and achieve company goals.

Pros

The paycheck, decent benefits, mostly friendly coworkers.

Cons

Horrible management (if you can call it that) and more interest in filling contracts than making sure the employee is a fit for the position.

Advice to Senior Management

Get your act together!

Pros

Excellent core business values. The company makes great investments in it employees so that they feel empowered to do better.

Cons

Because the company is very large, communications across the business can be very challenging at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to do a great job!

Pros

It's a job. The company caters a lot of lunches; we never go hungry. We get perks/small gifts like shirts, mugs, calendars, stress balls (they come in handy), bags, etc. The company designs and builds pretty cool vehicles. We have a test track and shop where these vehicles are built. We have high level visitors that come to visit our site and take tours. We devote a lot of time and energy into company and employee safety. We have the first LEED certified company building in San Jose. Unlike other defense contractors, cell phones and electronic devices (such as ipods) are allowed in the buildings. We can even access our personal email websites, etc.
We have the Performance Share Plan so when the company does well, we get money for it.

Cons

It's defense. You never know what will happen to the funding...especially now since Obama is in office. There are a lot of contractors that work here and if you make one small error (as a contractor), you will be fired. Even as a direct, full-time employee, like myself, I am scared of losing my job over some stupid, silly, minor reason. Like if I come in to work at 8:15 instead of 8:00 am. I am salaried, not hourly, with no set time schedule, and I still feel like I am going to be punished for little things like that.
Some websites are blocked due to bandwidth issues, that is a downside.

Advice to Senior Management

Communication is key. Make us feel appreciated. We don't. Give us room for growth. And give us reassurance that our jobs will be okay. Standardize practices. Draw up policies that work across sites. Take time to get to know us better, you might like what you find out about us. You can't pick and choose which meetings you want your direct reports to attend: my direct manager never invites me to her staff meetings or lunches, but all of her other direct reports are invited. That is just messed up.

In regards to organizational changes, make them faster and get the word out to employees. A lot of people are in limbo when these changes happen, but do not go into affect for months.

Pros

It's a very casual environment. When I was first hired I would wear khakis and a tie to work every day. Then my manager came over and told me that I didn't have to wear a tie - jeans are fine too. We get paid weekly which is incredible. It's easy to get along with fellow employees. Managers are all great people who you'd like to have a drink with after work.

Cons

It is possible to have 8 different bosses at one time. They keep restructuring the organization to the point where you can work there for 10+ years and not see a promotion or advancement. Also they tend to not pay their contractors right away so we have to deal with them occasionally.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop restructuring the organization. It's not going to change anything - all it will do is change the name of my department...the work will remain the same.