DISH Network Reviews

Pros

- Paid training
- Great trainers
- Great people to work with
- Great coaches
- Hours are flexible; can swap days or push hours for regular schedule
- Opportunity to acquire different shifts periodically by placing a bid which is based on performance
- With the right mind-set one can excel and move up quickly
- Multiple/varied promotion opportunities
- Competitive pay from start (based on past experience initially and thereafter on performance)
- Great bonuses! Make up to 40% of your gross pay every two weeks (all based upon position & performance)
- Free Dish Network service

Cons

- Must pass online assessment to even be considered for submitting an application or getting an interview; a 6 month reset if one fails. This is alright for some, but perhaps the entire process could be rethought because it eliminates many who are capable of doing the job though may not have access to the internet or those who prefer doing in-person applications
- Almost too much information to digest compared to the ever-shortening training program
- Expect to sit for long periods of time
- Be prepared to put up with various people, stupidity the likes you didn't believe existed
- Just like any job, there are some people in positions in which they have no business
- Occasionally they mandate 1-2 hours of overtime, more-so at the end of summer till the end of the year
- Unreal turnover but many are college students; others just aren't cut out for the amount of information put on them or the stress brought on by customer's complaints and the occasional rant

Advice to Senior Management

Overall I feel the leadership in place currently is perfectly capable or running the business satisfactorily for all those involved, whether it be investors, customers or employees. Really have no complaints towards those in management that I've dealt with thus far. Only thing I would address is the application process by our HR department. There is no doubt that some people who work there should never have been allowed through the door and others who deserve the job weren't even presented the opportunity.

Pros

It's one of the few places hiring right now.

Cons

Ridiculously long hours...average work day is between 12 and 16 hours. More and more unreasonable expectations with "point system" with less and less time allotted to complete them. Jobs reassigned to other techs and then techs penalized for not having enough points in a day. No disregard for family or personal life. Constant turnover here.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees better. Your practices are disgusting...You're taking advantage of people!!!

Pros

Fair salary, close location reasonable overtime for hourly employees

Cons

Poor upper management planing, unrealistic expectations, Poor employee treatment and complete disregard to family situations. Poor working environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Clear and realistic goals, do what you say, know your business and listen to your middle management.

Pros

Free Dish TV
Better than no job at all

Cons

Benefits are well below average
Pay is well below the average for the area
Poor treatment of Employees

Pros

There is a lot of variety in the work, depending on the team, and each group has some autonomy in making development decisions. The people are friendly, professional, and generally helpful. The corporate campus (in Meridian) is a fairly pleasant place to work, nicely landscaped, and with a good cafeteria. Some of the media-related events (like a BBQ sponsored by HBO to mark the season premiere of True Blood) are fun diversions.

Cons

The "core expectations" are a relic from another century. Granted, the corporate recruiters are very upfront about this, so no one can say they weren't warned when applying there, but the inflexibility they introduce into work/life becomes unacceptable after a while. Working from home for any reason, even weather-related, is not allowed. (VPN access is still provided, so that teams can handle after-hours support.)

The pay and benefits are not up to market standards. The company apparently has no desire to retain top talent. The most useful benefit was the HSA; Dish will contribute to employee HSA accounts if they take a simple health survey and make a tobacco-free pledge.

IT is also badly balkanized; each group jealously guards its turf, and getting a request submitted and completed virtually requires a court order. It shouldn't take three weeks for a software developer to get a laptop set up with the proper software, access to development and test servers, intranet, email, etc....but it did.

Advice to Senior Management

I don't know, try maybe paying your employees better? And find some way to streamline operations so that new employees can get started working right away, and requests for new resources and equipment don't require an act of God.

Pros

DISH has a clear career path for hourly associates. This allows for decent advancement opportunities for hourly employees. They also offer at least basic benefits and insurance as well.

Cons

After reaching a salaried position promotions are based on who likes you. If you are well liked by upper management you well be assigned very well performing teams and have plenty of chances for further advancement. However if you are not a favorite then you will be assigned poor teams (normally based on shifts, the better shifts attract the best performers.)

Advice to Senior Management

Upper management has to take a step back and honestly look at each empolyee instead of assigning positions based on popularity and whot they "like". If they ever really want to move forward then more opportunity has to be given to those that truly deserve it.

Pros

The one and only reason: the paycheck. Oh and also the hilarious motivational posters really do help lighten the mood.

Cons

Constant changes (you even sit in a different cubical every day!) and rarely do things change for the better. Every management decision is essentially a sloppy cover-up for a past misstep. Work environment is often uncomfortable and barely qualifies as sanitary. Can be highly stressful. Generally speaking, flexible morality is required to succeed. high turnover. Hard to describe the extent of it.

Advice to Senior Management

There wouldn't be much point in giving feedback or advice to anybody in change. It would probably be lost on them. Everything, absolutely everything, should be revamped from the top down.

Pros

Pay for Performance (get up to 40% more every check)
Contests
my manager was awesome (J. Hallmark!)
double screen computers

Cons

selling every call
long hours
non ergonomic chairs and workstations

Advice to Senior Management

leave the sales to the sales department, you shouldn't be forced to sell on every call

Pros

Nice building with a good location.

Cons

Working at Dish is like being back in elementary school. You get treated like you are a child and monitored as such as well. People are hired to do a job but then there is so much red tape and hierarchy that you cannot even do the job you were hired to do. The benefits are TERRIBLE and costly with the family out of pocket max being 11K. The max amount of time off that you can get here is 3 weeks and that is after 5 years of employment. That is it 3 weeks. No telecommuting opportunities and all employees must be in the building no later than 9:00am. Even if you had been traveling for business and your flight gets in at 10:00pm, still better be in by 9:00am. See like I said it is like being in elementary school again.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust your employees to do the job you hired them to do. Allow them to make decisions as they relate to their own department. Treat your employees with respect and dignity and in return you will get more productivity out of them.

Pros

For individuals without many experience your have the opportunity to get knowledge and skills to take to another company.

Cons

There is no work life balance you end up working 60+hours without recognition. Eventually your personal life becomes nonexistent and relationships turn sour.

Advice to Senior Management

Feedback is very important. If not given no one knows what they are doing.