Dorman Products Reviews

Pros

Great people, and leadership. Fun and learning work environment

Cons

Advancement opportunities are limited to when someone leaves the position

Pros

Diversity in work, alwasy a lot to do, a lot of interaction with different departments, fast-paced and a lot of room to grow your skills in your own way depending on the department

Cons

Departments operate in silos with conflicting goals. One department's goals (which they receive their bonus on) is the opposite or is conflicting with another department's goals. A strong C.Y.A. attitude has been permeating all departments. There is not enough focus given, too much is expected with not many tools and there is a severe lack of training in some departments.

Advice to Senior Management

Create a better traning program for new employees. There needs to be better communication between departments and less C.Y.A. approaches. Departments are fiercly silo'd and this inhibits a lot of growth opportunities and also increases frustration. Upper management needs to focus departments and allow them to operate as smaller businesses (as it was described to me when I started) but still with the same overall mission and focus as the overall Dorman business. I think they've just been growing too fast and they haven't had time to organize and re-focus their direction.

Pros

The company is growing and seems stable, though there's always concern when stock prices jump quickly - does the competent ownership/management take a quick buck and leave? So far, no... hopefully it stays that way. I took a big pay cut to work there, but it's a reasonable trade given work/life balance, respect, autonomy, etc. Doesn't seem to be much opportunity for advancement to very senior jobs or bumps in pay, and many employees there are satisfied to stay for the very long-term anyway. Personally, I'll have to jump when the recession ends, but will probably miss Dorman.

Cons

Relatively low pay. The company is generally cheap (like stingy-cheap), though that can be a plus sometimes too. Worst workspace ever - old building, smelly bathrooms, horrible lighting.

Advice to Senior Management

For all the discomforts and inconveniences at Dorman, you've found a way to keep good people around. Be ready to retain employees when the economy gets a little better - we want to stay at Dorman, and we'll continue to trade money and benefits for stability and respect - but not as much as today. As long as you step up to the plate then, and stick around yourselves, we'll stay for the long term.

Pros

Dorman has a relaxed work environment where people are informal but work hard. Recognition for a job well done is always given and opportunities for advancement are very good, especially since the company is growing at a healthy rate.

Cons

Generally speaking there aren't any cons, although the company has grown quite a bit over the past few years and is suffering the same growing pains that any company in its position would. All in all, very minor.

Advice to Senior Management

Please hang on to that small company atmosphere and culture as long as possible. Today many of the downfalls of working at larger companies don't exist at Dorman... these problem may come to Dorman with continued growth, but with concerted effort it may be possible to hold this off for a while.

Pros

Many of the colleagues within the IT group were excellent people and fun to work with. Work life balance was a positive. Telecommuting when necessary was never frowned upon. The company offers a free health club membership to Hatfield Athletic club for all employees.

Cons

Management in IT does not care about their employees. Resources are severely out of balance as there is way more work than the current staff can possibly handle. Management does not assist with prioritizing the work. They operate on a first in first out approach to work completion. Employees in IT are expected to work on helpdesk cases, small projects and large projects simultaneously. Management does not hesitate to fire staff w/o warning. 7 people were let go in the 13 months I was employed. This is an extremely high number since the IT dept totals 32 people in all.

Advice to Senior Management

The CEO of the company never communicates to the employees. There is no guidance on what the mission or vision of the company is. There is no long term plan. The management of IT breeds a culture where everyone is fearful of being fired and is held to impossible Service Level Agreements. The environment is not team based, it is everyone for themselves. People are assigned work w/o the information required to complete it. IT employees routinely have dozens of open helpdesk cases and multiple active projects at any one time. IT management has not figured out how to complete projects as a team and is more concerned with providing negative, non-constructive criticism of your work. Overall the Director of Business Systems and the VP of the dept are in way over their heads. Their actual experience level does not match their respective job titles. Both of those positions spend time managing projects and concentrating on useless SLA metrics as opposed to performing the typical duties of a Director or VP. Until the resource issue is sorted out this is a department to avoid at all costs.

Pros

Tries very hard to keep the small company feel even though operations are expanding at large. Decent pay and steady hours.

Cons

Virtually no relationship or communication between the departments. The office could be a bit nicer as well. Still pretty good though.

Advice to Senior Management

Work harder to increase communications between departments. Departments seem to keep to their own, and it is almost sort of cliquey.

Pros

The employees truly care about the success of the company and the sense of teamwork within the individual departments is very strong. Management treats the employees pretty well and does alot of little things to build emloyee morale. The company has maintained its small company culture while continuing to grow and it is a very friendly environment to work in. The stock performance has been very strong!

Cons

The strategic initiatives are not always clearly defined to the employees down the chain. Sometimes an initiative takes on a life of its own and the result is that the individual departments take off in different directions that overlap or conflict.

Advice to Senior Management

While teamwork within the individual departments is very strong, more needs to be done to build cohesion cross functionally.

Pros

Compensation was equal to, or greater than, what most companies would offer for a similar position.

Cons

Lack of leadership and people management skills in key roles.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to feedback given during exit interviews.