Daimler Trucks North America Reviews in Portland, OR Area

Pros

Easy to get time off
Paid week off between Christmas and New Year's

Cons

Promotions given for seniority, not ability
Not much room for growth
No innovation
Old technology

Pros

They have some very intelligent people who know all of the ins and outs of SAP. If you want to learn how to use SAP, this is a great place to do so (unless you need to be spoon-fed). Ask questions and work hard and you'll be able to obtain a more in-depth knowledge of the system than can be found most places.

Unusually flexible work hours makes them a good option for working mothers.

For a downtown Portland office, the commute is fairly easy and free street parking is readily available.

Cons

Management insisted on too many major changes at once and the resulting chaos created a nightmare mess for lower-level employees to clean up. Almost 2 years later and doubling their staff, they're still struggling (and still hiring).

Mandatory overtime

NO information sharing - conversations with coworkers (even work-related) are strongly discouraged. Management fails to provide necessary information, and peers aren't permitted to share information amongst themselves, so each individual comes up with their own way of performing their job functions. So, even when 20 people are performing the same job functions, they'll each have a different way of going about it.

Not much better than a sweatshop. Keep your head down, work until your body aches, go home and cry yourself to sleep, repeat. I had coworkers admit to me that this is the life they were living, and I experienced it myself.

Pathetic training - Heard more than once "Around here it's sink or swim, and we give you concrete boots."

Pay for your own coffee - nothing is free at Daimler.

Hunt through empty desks to find basic office supplies because office supplies were being rationed.

Advice to Senior Management

Teamwork, cooperation, and brainstorming aren't evil terms. Let your people get together to solve problems, share ideas, and learn to see each other as more than just the competition for jobs. Stop being so controlling, create an environment that people enjoy, and then let them use their talents to do amazing things. You're holding them back.

Pros

Generally friendly coworkers, long lunches, time off, convenient location if at Montgomery Park but Swan Island is horrible, if you're self-directed you can pretty much do your own thing.

Cons

TOTALLY oblivious upper management--oblivious or angry. Completely out of touch with their subordinates, who seemed stressed, frightened, and insecure as various cuts to the workforce were being made (with little to no communication). You'd have to have your head buried in the sand (or somewhere else) to not understand the level of frustration employees were dealing with on a daily basis. Work was really dumbed down and the workforce isn't trained at ALL to do their jobs well--left to do their jobs in the dark with lots of head-scratching. In fact, the overall work force was pretty uneducated. Very antiquated environment, no perks (what they had they kept cutting) unless you're a certain level. Everyone seemed consistently stressed out.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop trying to hide things, TRAIN YOUR WORKFORCE, and treat them like decent human beings! Communicate and stop being such a clique!

Pros

This is a good place to build up your catia experience and then move to Boeing after 4 or 5 years for some better pay. But we have a lot of vactaion, holidays, and sick days. A new 401K plan. Good work life balance. Extremely low stress. 2 health care provider choices Kaiser and Blue Cross. F.S.A. and H.S.A available. A new annual 2% merit program.

Cons

Compensation has taken another turn for the worse here. The hourly resident contractors are still working with a 10% paycut even though salaried engineers got their 10% back plus several bonuses at the beginning of the year. So now we are seeing hourly resident contractors leaving. Starting Jan 2011 the compensation package was completely redone. It was a complicated mix of salary, retirement, and health care benefit changes. It was rolled out in a classic shell game method with so many changes we didnt realize how much we lost until we went back to our desks and ran the numbers. The biggest loss was the pension. If you get hired here you will probably sit next to someone who will get 3000/mo when they retire and you wont get squat. Health care premiums went up to 360/mo from 160/mo. Co pays and deductables went up. Coverages decreased. The 1 thing I really dislike about this place is that they are constantly making changes to your compensation which makes it difficult for taking care of your family and planning for retirement.

Advice to Senior Management

We know nothing about retirement planning yet you expect us to do it all now. How would you like me to manage your retirement plan?Ididn't think so. But you expect me to manage my own? You got some nerve. That new Schwab 401K is very poor as far as 401K plans go. You took our pension and hung us out to dry!

Pros

If you're looking for a company with low stress and pay, them Daimler is the place.

Cons

No opportunity for advancement. Engineering practices are not well structured and tentative.

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

Great Coworkers
Product to take pride in
Health Benefits and the fact that they adjusted our salary to compensate for the increase.
Flex Time

Cons

Doesn't retain talent
Poor growth opportunity
Management is hypocritical - spends on self (iPads, catered meetings, first class) and takes from employees (company picnics, Turkey certificates, no meals during training)
Inconsistency with spending throughout the departments - some departments have team building events and others have nothing.

Advice to Senior Management

You better make an effort to appreciate your employees, because there's always somebody out there ready to take them from you. You've taken away all the morale boosters, poor compensation, and not much room for growth. Now that the economy is picking back up, many people have their eye on the door. If you don't want to lose them - then you better start treating them right.

Pros

Not too stressful
Good work / home balance
Stable work environment (office)
LEAN principles will insure longevity

Cons

Top down communication is horribly lacking, and sometimes WAY too filtered
Travel to northern Mexico
Employee review process is almost meaningless
No bonus structure for non-managers

Advice to Senior Management

Germany's lead / examples are not always best

Pros

Salary and benefits were good (especially during high-profit years). Work environment was nice. Portland is a great city to work in.

Cons

Some management were exceptional...yet others were dysfunctional at best. Unfortunately, the dysfunctional one's are allowed to retain their positions and drive output down to a mediocre level.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize the few inept managers who are demoralizing and blemishing a basically-stellar workforce. Then, get these managers out and demand excellence from ALL.

Pros

As a salaried professional, very flexible work hours. Kaiser plan is great - premiums are subsidized heavily by the company, and coverages is good although co-pay is high @ $15.00.

Cons

No advancement opportunities unless you are German, blond, and good looking. There is no mentoring program that is relevant to locals, only Germans. There is no work-life balance here, requiring most to work at least 50hrs/wk.

Advice to Senior Management

Previous processes that have been built were never optimized. For whatever reason or cause, this needs to be looked at because it has created an enormous legacy of bad processes - high maintenance, restricted functionality, limited flexibility, and obscene band-aid processes to hide their defects. This is very costly.

Pros

Enjoyed working with my coworkers

Cons

- Not much room for advancement
- Job placement does not take advantage of a person skillsets
- Engineering management do not know how to lead employees
- Amount of time spent doing actual engineering is negligible, spent more time doing data.

Advice to Senior Management

- Communicate with your employees
- Communicate with your employees
- Communicate with your employees