Belkin Reviews

Pros

At Belkin you have a voice and you have a unique opportunity at this time to really help decide who Belkin is going to be in a few years. People are treated with respect, there are no egos, and if you work within the creative side, you have worked with some of the best people in the industry..

Cons

The only downside would be that Belkin is a very lean company, so there is not a clear path as to where you will go from your present position, however, there are so many different areas within the company, there is plenty of room to grow.

Advice to Senior Management

Human Resources could use a little improvement. It seems that HR is not properely managed, but perhaps in the future good leadership will help out with this.

Pros

Flat,small organization. Makes investments in tools, and provides employees opportunities to learn on the job.

Cons

Work-Life balance for employees. No new products in a long time. BELKIN has struggled with defining its brand.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't aspire to be Apple, Logitech or Netgear, until you have new products in the pipeline first.

Pros

Great products and they are taking the necessary steps to keep it that way
Employees are innovative and very creative
The employees make it fun to work there

Cons

Upper management can be very stifling
Managers need to listen to employees and act
Employee engagement - If Belkin is not going to work to improve with the results they recieve... Then stop wasting everyone's time

Advice to Senior Management

Be proactive and not reactive!

Pros

Great facility-- views of park and city, well-designed, semi-open floor plan, cafeteria, private terrace
Awesome benefits-- flex hours, work from home option, health benefits are grade A, PTO days, good 401k program
Product design and usability - something to be proud of
People are fairly young (relative to similar size companies) and ambitious

Cons

Pressure and demand is kind of ridiculous
Quality of products are suspect-- due to pressure to deliver on timelines, quality suffers
People seem pretty miserable. Those who've passed the honeymoon period look rundown, unmotivated, uninspired, and numb
Turnover is high-- many employees have quit in recent months. Company chasing away all the good folks
Company talks about career paths and professional growth, but don't count on this

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your employees. You hired them because they are experts in their respective fields
Not all decisions need to be agreed upon by a team of 10 people
You have good intentions but it's rarely acted upon.
You are trying to improve employee engagement, but that won't happen unless changes at the core are made, such as trust and empathy.

Pros

Campus is beautiful.
Great cafeteria.
Good looking products.

Cons

13 hour shifts are the norm.
No work/life balance.
Lack of process.
Working on the weekends is expected.
Under staffed.
Company strategy changes daily.
Too many similar products.
Sales bends over backwards for customers.
Lack of confidence as a company.

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce your SKU's
Hire more people.
Figure out your process.

Pros

Great campus and surrounding amenities for employees to enjoy 7 days a week.
Friendly staff members.
Medical benefits package is great.

Cons

No focus so you always feel like you are jumping through hoops to get projects done, only to have another equally or more urgent project to take it's place.

Would rather give you a pat on the back for a job well done but refuse to promote or increase compensation after many years of self sacrifice to help the company meet objectives. Words of appreciation do not align with their actions.

Advice to Senior Management

Obtain focus as a company with your products, initiatives, and employee engagement. To truly show your employees that they are the companies best asset you must promote and compensate them.

Pros

Casual dress code. Great new office that's designed very well. Nice park across the street from the office. Cafeteria onsite. Decent vacation time allowance and fairly decent benefits.

Cons

Executive management tends to treat employees like children. There is a lot of distrust and control issues from the managment. Due to the distrust, a lot of tension, anxiety and nervousness is created among employees which does not foster teamwork. To avoid being blame, people tend to point fingers and conduct actions that cover their a8ses. Leadership team changes their minds and company direction often and do not like to commit. It's one thing with keep up with a fast paced, constant changing environment, but another thing to keep changing directions but not knowing what the final destination or goal should be.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat people like adults and they will behave like adults. Recognize and reward when an employee achieves something great. Commit to something and provide clear directions. Demonstrate the values by acting like it rather than just talking about it.

Pros

-Nice new building. But company can't pay for the rent due to poor due diligence, so they have to rend some space out.
-there are still some nice people left who are hard-working and are team-players

Cons

- poor upper management
- CEO would rather listen to Chief Branding Office to make business decisions.
- They are proud of branding, even though branding is me-too. They copy the website look of Apple and even the packaging of Apple. No originality.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the people below you who had experience growing Belkin. Stop listening to minted-MBAs who do all the talking and analyses but don't have hands-on experience launching successful products.

Pros

There are no good reasons to work at Belkin. Don't even bother applying. The company will use you to its own benefit, bleed you dry, until you are of no use to them, afterwhich you will be discarded.

Cons

Flying by the seat of their pants. Leadership is fickle and prone to shooting from the hip. Processes and fairness are not embedded in how things are done. Perception is everything. Deft jockeying for position and appearing to fit the role are important for survival and advancing your career. Trust no one, only your ability to play the game. One wonders how much longer the company can survive given the inefficiencies and lack of communication that abound; the answer is in the sacrificies that the employees make to try to play their part in keeping the company alive and their roles relevant. Look to to work with another company; choose Belkin last.

Advice to Senior Management

How about supporting your direct reports? They will rise to the occasion if they can trust your commitment to bringing out the best in them and in your standing shoulder to shoulder in meeting deadlines and providing best in class in all respects. Be the model.

Pros

- great experience in developing product
- great access to senior management
- workforce is pretty young, so it's fun to go to work

Cons

- great work does not lead to promotion or pay raise
- constantly changing priorites make it difficult to understand the direction we're heading
- not doing a good job of balancing short term and long term strategy

Advice to Senior Management

Please listen to your people... they love to be at Belkin, but feel un-represented. Decide on a direction and make it clear to everyone.