Donlen Reviews

Pros

benefits are impressive for a company of its size. the ceo is pretty brilliant. there are a few really admirable middle managers, and it seemed like people were eventually rewarded if they put in enough time.

Cons

location, limited growth opportunities, internal technology received limited attention

Pros

It pays okay and the benefits are decent. Like it says in the other reviews they do provide free coffee and have a work out room.

Cons

Unbelievably high stress level, not worth the money. Management seems to mysteriously find ways to terminate employees who have reached milestone anniversaries. Then they hire a few part time kids or temps instead. The only way to get promoted is to be friends with someone in management. In other words it's all a vicious cycle of politics and back stabbing. There's NO opportunity for an honest person to advance, at least in my department. All the real work is done by the little people, managers are nothing but lazy bullies. Recently the company was bought by Hertz for a bazillion dollars so now everything makes sense.

Advice to Senior Management

Tell people HONESTLY what the job is like before you hire them. Keep in mind that these are peoples lives and career histories that you're playing with.

Pros

Opportunities for young/inexperienced employees to get significant exposure to senior level business people and perform jobs that are usually reserved for much more senior positions.

Highly motivated people have an opportunity to define the scope of their own roles.

Cons

Workplace highly charged with destructive politics.
Universal lack of good communication within the organization.
Unpredictable environment, and poisonous culture.
Lack of respect for professional employees.
Culture reinforces mediocracy as productive employees are overwhelmed with responsibilities without recognition, promotions are dispensed through favoritism, and assertive leaders are punished or dismissed if they challenge the prevailing notions of leadership.

Advice to Senior Management

The organization needs to mature and leadership should allow their managers to manage instead of undercutting their credibility and authority at every turn.

Pros

Lots of perks for employees (free soda, coffee, holiday events, etc.) truly showing appreciation

Cons

Noticed a lot of turnover despite boasting a low turnover rate

Advice to Senior Management

There is one department in particular that experience a high turnover rate while I worked there, think management should take a look into the reasons why.
Seems like there's a lot of "who you know" involved with promotions and terminations as opposed to being determined by quality of work.

Pros

For a person starting out their career, there are a few choice positions where one can grow quickly, to a point, but there are very few positions of this sort.

For established management level people, who want a relatively easy job (at least when I was there), and who are fine making between 80,000 to 120,000. Donlen can be a dream job. Yes it can get hectic at times, but it is generally smooth sailing except for the occasional emergency. While there, I always noticed that this is a location for people go out to pasture. Essentially, a great place if your not worried about advancement, and are fine waiting for retirement.

Cons

No bonus potential unless you are management.
They will give you the minimum compensation possible for your role.
There is a LOT of office politics.

For the younger worker (assuming your coming out of college), opportunities at Donlen are really a crapshoot. My basic analysis is that because Donlen is a small company, this limits available positions. Add the fact that there is hardly any turnover in management, and the result is that your career here will quickly plateau. Then there is the problem of office politics. A lot of managers don't have real oversite, and if you get stuck with a crummy manager, your career opportunities will actually regress. I've seen it happen, no joke. I was lucky enough to be in a more fairly run deparment, and it was that luck that gave me opportunity.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop being so cheap. Increase your compensation level. With that you could attract way better talent and lower your turnover. Trust me on this.