Coca-Cola Amatil Reviews

Pros

An influential business that backs its' people and is constantly seeking to improve even the most minute detail of operations. Slow to move, but with incredible inertia was pursuing a chosen path

Cons

Slow to respond due to size, and the Coke way is often the only way. The benefits of size can also be the greatest hinderance due to tyranny of distance and communication lags

Advice to Senior Management

Keep on incentivising and growing internal talent. This is the key to holding onto the brightest performers. Otherwise brain drain is a distinct possibility

Pros

* Great training and development progam
* Structured policies and procedures make it easy to manage people
* Good communication from Senior Management
* Company is expanding into new areas (e.g. alcohol) and identifying profitable business ventures

Cons

* Extremely political environment
* Minimal communication between departments
* Often the "Coke Way" is considered the only way - not really open to new ideas from employees
* Slow promotion often you need to work across a number of different areas before you will receive a promotion (5-7 years)
* Pay is not competitive
* Minimal work/life balance

Advice to Senior Management

Create a consultative culture where ideas are shared and nourished across teams. Review work/life policies particularly for returning mothers - be more open to part time and job share in senior positions.

Pros

Peers are generally supportive and dedicated to helping each other and also the location of the Head Office building is convenient to everything. Also the prestige of a well-known company like Coca-Cola Amatil looks good as part of a career history.

Cons

A lot is expected of the employee with very little offered in return. Promises of better conditions are frequently made without any kind of followup. Surveys to gauge employee engagement are taken at a mind-numbing frequency without any action taken based on the results.

The management style is very unforgiving and is accompanied with a constant state of 'restructure' making any coherent direction almost non-existent. Constant Budget cuts leads to bitter inter-department rivalry. Employee morale is almost permanently low leading to a grey to dark working environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior Management within CCA seems to be engaged in an exercise to 'rule with an iron fist' seemingly forgetting that individuals can leave just as easily as they came. Vital skills and talents are walking out the door while a strange practice in bemused head-scratching is being carried out by management. Working for a highly - recognizable brand isnt its own reward. Listen to your people. If something is wrong, do more than engage in lip-service to fix it.

Pros

The brand looks good on your resume.

Cons

The department is constantly restructuring. It has not seen a period of stability over six months for at least 5 years now.

With each successive change in senior leadership, each CIO tries to add their mark. The current leadership makes top down, broad technology decisions on a whim. There is no transparency, no decision making process. Vendors are selected by one person without visibility.

With a SAP project that is now grossly over budget, completely unrealistic delivery dates are being set and people have been working for months long hours and weekends. There has been no room for intelligent dissent. Voices that do not echo the new management are rapidly replaced by friends of the new senior management.

With the unpredictability from senior leadership, the middle management turf wars are rife. With managers so concerned about their jobs and appearances that they are not effectively managing their people.

Commitments are made to stave off wrath from above that are completely unrealistic and cannot be met. Staff are now starting to leave in droves.

Morale has been low for some time now and is likely to remain that way. Engagement scores in company surveys have sat around 43%.

Advice to Senior Management

If you have a dysfunctional department, look to the top. That's where culture comes from. When the company pays for you to do your MBA, make sure you take head in those lectures about management styles and organisational behaviour. There is no one else to blame. Listen to your people, there's a reason they were hired, they know what they're talking about.

Be transparent and open minded in your decision making, and stop hiring friends from past companies who will echo only your own sentiments.