Disney Reviews in Los Angeles, CA Area

Pros

You have GREAT benefits - health benefits are amazing!
You meet and make GREAT friends!
You have access to the Parks for free and can take 3 guests.

Cons

If you want to get ahead, you will need to put your personal life on hold.
Depending on your boss, you could have awful leadership.
Be prepared to play the corporate game.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior Leadership Workshops on how team-building with their direct reports.

Pros

Great reputation and worldwide brand recognition; lots of pride in making magic happen for guests and consumers. Among many long-time employees and cast members, strongly expressed desire to keep Walt's dream alive.

Cons

Be prepared to work long hours (not uncommon at many companies, but it's engrained in the culture here). Studios/film business is notoriously subject to not only the economy, but to whether the last few films are flops or hits. Lay-offs have abounded lately.

Advice to Senior Management

Beware of losing too much institutional knowledge to lay-offs and "brain drain." Make sure that the feeling of being Walt's company is not just part of employee orientation, but gets passed on to newcomers to the company, even if they have valuable experience and skills to bring in. Without that inner core, there is a danger of losing the company's identity: its soul, if you will.

Pros

Brand reputation, experiencing some multi-million projects to build experience.

Cons

Politics involved can get overwhelming.

Pros

One of the most trusted brands, free park admission, commitment to excellence in creative/business areas. Tradition of providing a total experience in family entertainment.

Cons

Mediocre pay, diminishing benefits, expectation of long hours, eroding loyalty to short-term or long-term workers (layoffs cavalierly and capriciously handled).

Advice to Senior Management

Think of long-term harm of shedding institutional knowledge as opposed to short-term gain from outsourcing jobs & infrastructure. Take note of the adage: "it is more important to be good than to look good."

Pros

Fun atmosphere and reasonable pay.

Cons

Considerable standing and walking. Very political company. The atmosphere tends to lend itself to gossip and cross talk which takes away from the magical time the guests are supposed to be having. Promotion does tend to be according to who you know and not how qualified you are.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the Disney spirt like Walt would have liked! Althought it is tough to keep a small and personal feeling, this huge company would do well to keep in mind the family spirit.

Pros

A great company with a rich heritage. Lots of very bright people.

Cons

Can be very competitive and political. Lots of stress goes into the "magic."

Pros

Fun, a bit of glamour, flexible hours, good benefits.

Cons

Very little support from senior leadership to get the tools and resources we need to do our jobs well and provide the best Guest experience. The administration building gets all the luxuries, while the actual operating areas get the leftovers.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop spending so much money, time and effort on meaningless TDA "initiatives" that have absolutely no impact on the Guest experience or the way the Cast Members can do their jobs effectively. Get out of that stupid yellow building once in awhile and walk through the theme parks instead of taking the backstage shuttle to avoid the Guests and the Cast and the entire reason you are there in the first place.

Pros

Best perks of any company, anywhere: free tickets to the theme parks! Disney is a huge company, so advancement opportunities are plentiful.

Cons

Mickey Mouse is cheap. Starting pay is lower than average for the same jobs elsewhere. Plenty of overtime is offered, which means they don't staff at adequate levels.

Advice to Senior Management

Starting pay should be comparable to similar jobs in the marketplace. Especially in the Los Angeles market. Don't be cheap!

Pros

The company is very well established. People are very friendly and personable. Senior management organize events and conferences at least 1-2 times a year to communicate important developments within the company and answer questions

Cons

Promotions take a long time, years sometimes. Full time opportunities are less as compared to part-time / temporary project based positions.

Advice to Senior Management

Offer transparency in terms of hiring/layoff decision. Focus on recruiting standards. needs to be more pro-active.

Pros

Great discount. Plenty of time-off.

Cons

Grossly inexperienced management. I was hired as a supervisor to the stockroom, I was told that I would be given both the opportunity to advance and solve problems in a competitive retail environment. Instead, I was given rigid imperatives without insight, ambiguous tasks without proper directive. I was expected to follow through on tasks projected to take 10 man-hours within 2 etc.. With almost no room to actually resolve a situation, the impatient managers refused to accommodate issues brought to them by me. Their lack of insight and vapid mindedness, lead to an overall decline of store efficiency.

The pay was horrible for the expectations, the risk and the poor opportunity for advancement. Do not work here unless you are hired as part of the management team. As a supervisor, I was treated sub-human. My workers were excellent, they were underpaid and treated unfairly as well. The level of stress is not worth the pay deficiency.

Advice to Senior Management

I cannot stress the word "inexperienced" enough. Despite the utter lack of retail experience, the store manager was seriously deprived of leadership and managerial skills. The assistant manager would often stir drama pertaining to the manager to his staff, especially myself and associates.

Learn to think outside the box. Use your imagination when it comes to problems and don't make frivolous attempts to advertise superiority. Instead, think of effective ways to maximize your staff's hours to the store's advantage. Wasting time is the number one preventable cause of occupational inefficiency.