EchoStar Reviews

Pros

The team I worked with at EchoStar 100 Inverness Terrace East (NOT DISH) was one of the best teams I have had the pleasure of working with. They are outgoing, friendly, personable and believe in having a good relationship with their employees. Also they are not time keepers at EchoStar like there counterpart DISH you are hired as a professional and you are treated as such.
As for the Windows, Unix , Network Staff they are friendly smart and treat you with respect. This is a company that I can see working at for a long time as long as they do not take the DISH mentality and rules.

Cons

I really have no cons about the IT department or the company, this is like working for a normal company out there. IT is very relaxed as long as you get the job done.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the environment totally separate from DISH, understand that in order to keep employees you need to have a environment like EchoStar that is more mainstream. IT people are not a dime a dozen when you are working with cutting edge technology. I would recommend EchoStar to anyone out there in the Windows Admin area.

Pros

Exposure to TV industry
Free movie library

Cons

Clueless management. While I was there the majority of 2 entire departments just quit their jobs out of sheer disgust for impotent management.

Advice to Senior Management

Acknowledge good workers by paying and promoting accordingly

Pros

Good technology to learn from. Great team.

Cons

Echostar at my old location was good for years until the company began hiring bad managment and turning a employees away despite what they call an open door policy when employee would denote workplace abuses and more to their bosses and/or human resources. I am ashamed that it still goes on like it does at this location despite employees coming forth and going on record. If you love working had and being verbally, emotionally and otherwise abused by your bosses, this location and operations is your place.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to follow EEO policies and to actively listen to employees instead of working to tear down the very people that build and drive your business. Management is a fine balance between people skills and business skills, but Echostar managment are too hung up on business, while stepping on the the employees. Echostar has a long way to go before being known as ever being "EEO" compliant. Check the web. You'll see.

Pros

Great cash rich business with good future

Cons

top driven decision making - poor visibility in the managment vision

Advice to Senior Management

encourage participatory management

Pros

I've worked here for 6 years and have never heard rumors of lay-offs, nor have there been lay-offs even through the worst economic times. EchoStar is very stable.

Cons

Our health benefits stink; we have choices of high deductbile plans or 80/20 plans with a ceiling of $10,000.00 per year. We get just 4 days of sick per year AFTER 2 years of employment. Once you achieve 5 years of service you do not get an increase in vacation until you achieve 10 years. Our salaries are not within the national average - in fact they are below.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees better by rewarding them with better benefits and wages.

Pros

It's a pay check (although small by industry standards) so it beats unemployment. Low expectations so the underachiever can coast through. Stock purchase plan has higher cap than many places so you can make a bit of extra money by going "all in" and hitting the sell button when the shares hit your account (IMHO it's not a long term investment).

Cons

Low pay compared to technology companies. Extremely bad benefits (Example, I know people that go out on the street for insurance because they can get a better deal than the Echostar insurance). Very top down management structure - ideas that come from below, no matter how good, have no value with management - it's very much an attitude that "we're managers because we're smarter than you so your ideas don't have value". This is very much shown to employees as "we've been successful for 20 years doing things the way we have so there's no reason to change" - and if they wanted to change, why would the keep bringing back the same old upper managers that the company was founded with?
As for the common employee - to management you're just an easily replaceable cog in the machine. Don't expect to be treated with respect.
Management has no clue as to how to schedule and manage a large program. New programs are started after months of deliberation at the upper reaches of the company with a dictated due date. No one does a bottom up analysis to determine if the due date is even achievable. Instead they brow beat folks to put in extra hours to meet some arbitrary date on their task. But inevitably some other area couldn't even get close to meeting their deadlines because they are way understaffed and poorly managed. And the downside for missing a schedule by months? Well it's not the upper management who arbitrarily dictated the date that faces the heat.
Upper management loves to micro-manage things far below their level while ignoring things that they should be doing. For instance, Mike Dugan has to approve all performance reviews. Last year they were delayed 3 months (including cost of living adjustments being delayed) while he tried to change the design of a remote control that the customer had already approved and which there were already thousands of built remotes in the warehouse. Mr Dugan, the customer is always right even when it's not what you want.
A coworker that recently departed to greener pastures was asked where her company loyalty was. She replied that loyalty is something earned, not demanded, and what had Echostar done to earn loyalty from it's employees? Pretty much sums up the feeling in the trenches. As the economy turns, many people will be leaving to find greener pastures bc the company not only isn't doing anything to earn loyalty, it's in fact acting like it's doing a favor to give the employees a job.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of everyone above VP level and half your VPs. Replace them with competent engineering managers. You can't have a world class company with poor leadership.
Get people that know how to schedule and run engineering programs and give the free rein to do so (don't fire them for pushing back against the impossible).
Raise pay and benefits to be competitive with technology companies or you'll continue to have difficulty hiring good staff (and those that are just biding their time until the economy turns may stay on if treated well).

Pros

Good coworkers, not difficult to get along with, many are very helpful and even competent.
Usually 40 hours - Unless there is an outage or other issue, at 5:00, or the end of your shift, you can go home.
Can be a very good "foot in the door" job.
Not a terribly bad place to work, especially in this economy.

Cons

Not much time off
Not much medical benefits
Not much chance for raises, no matter how low your salary is
Not much recognition for going the extra mile (Recognition only given to those who work insane hours, if at all)
Not much sleep. (Some departments change your shift with little notice. On call in some departments can be terrible.)
Not much patience from management, especially for mistakes.

Advice to Senior Management

Echostar can simply not comprehend that employees gain experience and appreciate in value. I have seen outages prolonged due to fact that people with the skill to solve the issue no longer work at the company. The money lost in hiring, retraining, and loss of skill is much more than the savings they accrue from cutting vacation, sick time, and medical benefits.

Pros

- Good family/life balance
- Some managers are decent
- Interesting technology
- Motivated individuals will acquire a large skill set that is transferable
- Job stability

If you live in Cheyenne and love work with technology, Echostar is one of your best/only options. You can count on having a stable job, but don't expect much more.

Cons

- Poor benefits
- Low moral (Don't know many people that actually like working here)
- Poor upper management
- Communication issues between management and employees
- They keep putting off personal appraisals
- Small raises
- No bonuses
- No pension plans
- Small 401k % matching
- Not much for tuition reimbursement

Advice to Senior Management

Pay attention to what employees are saying! If you haven't noticed, this website has a re-occurring theme towards Echostar.

Pros

1. learn to work with 5 level management
2. great managers.

Cons

1. Need to work with the management. (Talk more)
2. Not flexible.
3. deadlines are sometime tough

Advice to Senior Management

1. competitive salary and benifits
2. don't save money in small things like security, turn attention to big things.

Pros

You get the opportunity to try and achieve a job on an extremely low budget and with minimal tools. It can be done but it is quite challenging.

Cons

Poor health benefits, extremely poor raises, and an ineffective human resource department who likes to give people the run-around very often. If you are good at what you do, then do not expect to move up within the company. The company tends to keep hard workers where they are at and promote the incompetent.

Advice to Senior Management

If you want your employees to stick their neck out for you, you have to be willing to do the same for them, otherwise eventually it will get to a point where you wind up with a team you dont want and are not willing to make management look good.