Belkin Reviews

Pros

People are friendly, helpful, and hardworking.
You can feel the energy and that there is always something going on.
The office in Playa Vista is really nice, with ample parking and space.
Organized vanpools is a big help against LA traffic.

Cons

There is always a lot of work.
A lot of things get rushed.
There is also significant turnover, which can be a bummer.

Pros

Most of the people at this company are great.

Cons

This is the worst HR department I have ever worked for in my life. There was more backstabbing than any job ever and these are supposed to be the people that assist in employee issues. they have more issues than them all. The problem needs to be looked at from within and not looking from the outside in.

Advice to Senior Management

Find out the truth of what's going on in your internal department before you look outside.

Pros

Belkin is known for throwing high salaries at people they like, location is awesome, open space is great, there are still some people left who know what they do.

Cons

Not sure where to begin, I've spent over 5 years and year over year it got worse and worse. The best people leave within 1 year of joining and the rest are just doing bare minimum until they find the next job. The way Belkin treats suppliers - is crap. They are always looking how to postpone/delay payments or to shift responsibility onto some one else. We've had such hard times just to find people who would want to work with us. Within the organization - the term "throw under the bus" is the daily routine. Management is changing more often that the seasons, there is no company strategy or direction. Promotions based on who f....d up less, risks are punished and not rewarded. At the end of the day - they will find a way to screw their own employees out of bonuses. Honestly - the one person I knew who was going back to Belkin after 2 year absence, ran away within 3 months.

Advice to Senior Management

This is beyond any advice or feedback. If you are a manager at Belkin - you deserve to be there.

Pros

Friendly, fun people at the non-upper-management levels.

Cons

No constructive feedback, no effective communication from upper management, no cooperative environment, no leadership

Advice to Senior Management

Come up with a strategy and stick to it; communicate the strategy; really listen to your employees

Pros

A formalized process to bring products to the existing channels within a decent time frame.

Cons

Stuck in their ways because the familiar has become the norm and taking risks is highly frowned upon

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to change by seeing how other technology companies have built NEW products and technologies. Stop copying the playing field and playing the "We make stuff for your Iphone/pad/pod" manufacturer.

Pros

work environment was fun, engadging early on in my career working at Belkin
r&d and quality used to be priorities
good health benefits

Cons

spiriling downward trend when sr. leadership team was changed
extremely high level of employee turnover, talent, braindrain
employee reward structure encourages bad practices, short term thinking
complete lack of upward mobility, employee recognician, in all departments but sales

Advice to Senior Management

restructure the bonus and incentives you give to employees based on long term metrics
start thinking like an industry leader
Quality, quality quality. really have missed the boat here, company quality perception is a joke, invest heavilly here, customers will pay more for products they believe are better
invest heavilly in REAL r&d, this should not be a sales first company
stop rushing everything out the door, need to change the mindset that time is of the utmost importance, its not, the BRAND is everything and currently the brand is not well known or received

Pros

Great place to work at early on in your career to get broad scope of experience. Excellent cafeteria, good interaction among employees outside of work, and wide range of peer talent. The company is very clever by distributing their product portfolio across a broad range of revenue streams; highly diversified. Good people overall but can get abrasive if not part of a group. They almost had it right.

Cons

The company does not care about quality and safety until they get caught or their legal department tells Sr. Managers to back off with the shortcuts. Conflicting metrics within departments with one that tries to save money by working deals with vendors without telling development team, exposing the organization as a whole to huge liability and their customers to major safety risks. Human Resources does not know their place in the food chain, disruptive and not professional, actually called "Human Resistance" by employees. The company as a whole does not know where it's going, many Sr. Managers interupt progression of progress. Too many chiefs outnumbering the poorly aligned indians resulting in too many inexperienced cooks in the kitchen.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen first, act second, reward accordingly, and stop compromising safety for the sake of very short term gain.

Pros

Compensation. They pay well but that is the only positive. If you are contract they let you participate in the 401k.

Cons

Where to start? 12 hour days mean certain failure. It would have required a 16 hour day plus 6 hours on the weekend to do what I had to do. Understaffed and severely overworked. Negative management styles. Incompetent Managers. A very strange and negative environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire enough people to do the job. Create an environment where people can have outside lives, you will get better output.

Pros

An admirable US brand, potential to be as good as Apple. Some great people with enthusiam and creativity. Good vision and ambition.

Cons

Cannot execute what they want to do. Good vision and ambition becomes distanced dream. Only design capability but lack of R&D or strong technology know-how is key reason.

Advice to Senior Management

Apple is an admirable company not only because they have great design, but also extremely strong software + hardware R&D team behind the scene. Something for the management to think about.

Pros

The culture is such that people at all levels have an opportunity to make an impact. Management listens to suggestions and takes them seriously even from relatively junior people. A lot of young people and highly educated people. Great facility and passionate people. Also has good benefits and casual work environment.

Cons

Sometimes so fast paced that people must work long hours to keep up. A lot of fire drills and sometimes high stress. It seems that most people leave because they become burnt out, not that they dislike the company or people.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more consistent in direction of company. Communicate goals more clearly and help people understand the justification behind the changes in process and goals. Reward people for working hard and recognize their efforts. Find ways to ensure employees don't become burnt out. Work on solutions that allow people to have better work-life balance