BASF SE Reviews

Pros

stable work situation and big space for people development

Cons

too big so everyone feel is quite small for a huge company

Advice to Senior Management

improve the overall benefits to staff

Pros

Work pressure is moderate.
Work related facilities are good.
Resources and networking opportunities are good.

Cons

Bureaucratic.
Ludwigshafen is not a great place to live, and public transport from nearby towns is time consuming.
Does not feel a very lively organization. You work and go back home at the end of day following a monotonous routine everyday.

Advice to Senior Management

Work on improving career development and internal movement possibilities so that young minds can grow and contribute.

Pros

good salary, stable work environment, huge network, many job opportunities, good location to commute, options to work abroad, great workplace for engineers

Cons

boring industry (depends on the division), very slow, bureaucratic organization, very hierarchical, Ludwigshafen is a bad location for young people

Advice to Senior Management

I would suggest to find new ways to attract young people outside the region. BASF could be a great place to work with.

Pros

Best chance in Asia Pacific to know top management levels.
More diverse workplace than other local countries.
Many business units to choose from.

Cons

Unclear promotion process.
Lack of leadership in middle management.
Increasingly unattractive benefits and salaries compared with other firms.
Most people value work safety than high performance.
Top performers not adequately recognized and promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership is more than talk. Good people are not going to stay long if promotion and compensation structure is not changed. HR is one of the weaker links in the company and needs to be revamped.

Pros

Good work life balance
Accessible working location and good work environment
Colleagues are polite and professional

Cons

Not a place if you are ambitious and keen to learn
Employees who has been around for years clearly are disillusioned
Environment can be negative especailly when it comes to management sponsored projects

Advice to Senior Management

Don't sweat it... the company will be around after your time

Pros

-Locally, company has a mix of people of all ages that makes for a diverse work place.
-Company is flexible with leave time

Cons

- Company structure and information flow/sharing is poor.
- Employees who are institutionalised are very resistant to change and negative.
- Local operations are sales driven but held back by central R&D
- Employee count at local operations are thin. Only have time to fight spot fires.

Advice to Senior Management

- Company structure and information flow/sharing is poor.
- Employees who are institutionalised are very resistant to change and negative.

Pros

The workload can get very comfortable after you know how things work in this company.
If you are employed professionally the perks and salary can be attractive where you can expect to be paid above market rate, however if you joined them fresh out of university, the salary growth is definitely a down-side.

Cons

If you are thinking of a challenging job where you can look forward to going office everyday, you might as well look elsewhere.
You can openly sense the distaste in employees attitudes when it comes to senior management driven projects... and there are plenty of top-down projects where middle managers just play along for the sake of not sticking out like a sore thumb

Advice to Senior Management

BASF needs to start to think about harnessing the power of decentralization

Pros

A very good company to work for. Shows consideration for employees and has a very flexible working policy. Proud of its enviable sustainability record and continues to build upon it. Good pay and conditions, nice working environment.

Cons

All of the above can vary between business units and managers. German colleagues with the right background can fast track in a way others cannot.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognise the value of social networking and invest more in these trends.

Pros

Largest chemical company in the world, with the most reach in the market place. Proud to work for a strong company that is into everything and well recognized. BASF is a good company compared to many others to want to work for. Benifits are very good and the management is very smart at the highest levels. Middle management at the Director level needs improvement since there are some individuals that should not be there, most note is in Detroit Automotive. Managers at the field level are excellent. Working for BASF is really an honor since they do care and want the best for employees if they can do it.

Cons

Eurpoean company, favor towards Germans and others over USA employees for advancement or jobs over seas.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more proactive in reaching our towards employees, those in the field need to be heard and seen more than those in corporate offices working.

Pros

Good job security, fair chances to secure funding for projects, genuine interest in future of company at most staff levels, realistic expectations of work loads.

Cons

Inflexible work attitudes, highly ethnocentric (male-German) perspectives, surprising tolerance for superficial platitudes ("managerese"), poor support for career changers in most departments. Uninspiring and often unprofessional management style. No genuine interest in real further education for staff. Arrogant #1 attitude in many departments. Very old fashioned company culture. Ridiculously fickle bonus system.

Advice to Senior Management

Fresh blood is desperately needed here: employ some professional managers, ie not simply ex-researchers who couldn't cut it in research. Drop the Mao-esque "hurrah" campaigns (zukunftspakt forschung/sicherheit etc). Institute a genuine system for staff promotion, career change and proper further education (ie no more "learn commerce in 3 days" seminars). Increase basic wages but decrease the yearly bonus and make it far more variable and performance dependent. Reform the betriebsrat system (a german perversion) and reducate people against the "us and them" system (a German wide problem, "us"=non-uni educated "them"=uni-educated). Big step: drop the formality, its 2008 not 1908.........