Electro Scientific Industries Reviews

Pros

Flexible and very friendly people. Good benefits

Cons

Company kept down sizing and kept expecting the same work output. Went above and beyond on many occasions and still was not good enough for job security.

Advice to Senior Management

Most of the success for the company came in the lower level work. People worked countless hours and effortlessly to make the quarter demands. Yet the company continued to higher upper management positions in lieu of keeping jobs at the lower level. These are the people that makes ESI have successful quarters. It is shameful that you rid the american people of jobs and outsource overseas.

Pros

Friendly coworkers.
Flexible work (but long) hours.

Cons

No career growth.

Rediculous performance evaluation process.

No visibility on what to do next.

Two kinds of managers: 1, the kind that makes flashy plans but cannot execute the plans. 2, the kind that just follows their bosses or acts as a middleman but provides no support.

ESI has acquired a number of companies in the last decade, and the majority of them have been destroyed. The rest of these acquired companies have been signifantly down sized. None of the acquisitions have shown any business advantange in the long run.

Advice to Senior Management

Are you really treating your people the way you say on the posters?

Pros

Time off allocation is nice for a new employee. Stock option plan is worthwhile. Engineering is king and appreciated. In-house cafeteria is a great deal!

Cons

Long term prospects are limited as they move their manufacturing off-shore to Asia. Internal movement is preferential by the upper management.

Advice to Senior Management

Look at work experience and not just a degree! Upper management needs to get out of their offices more and walk around and get a feel of what the rank and file are doing and see how they perceive things.

Pros

Flexible work schedules are a huge plus. There's never a problem with rearranging my schedule to meet my family needs. Great people who really know their stuff work here. The benefits package is really good too.

Cons

There aren't many opportunities for advancement. The review process is tedious. Hard work isn't always recognized on an individual level.

Advice to Senior Management

Work towards streamlining the review process. Stay on top of management to insure reivews are being given timely and are not extending a month or more beyond the given deadlines.

Pros

Compensation & benefits are reasonable for this industry.

Cons

Very little job security in a downside market. Be prepared to be laid off (no matter what your level of seniority).

Advice to Senior Management

I think nearly all the senior managers are all intimidated by the type of leadership of the CEO and therefore are afraid to confront him with innovative or different business strategies.

Pros

The people at ESI are smart and easy to get along with. There's a wide variety of technology and a lot of it is cutting-edge. The company is small enough that any individual can make a noticeable difference if they want to get off of their butt. Intentions are almost always good.

Cons

There's been an incredible amount of churn in personnel over the last 5 years. The company is in the process of transitioning from old-school where 25+ years of service was typical to new-school where 5 years of service is industry average. Strong, team-building leadership is undervalued and almost non-existent. Company culture doesn't include constructively critical periods of review across entire disciplines but rather pits engineers against one another for once-yearly reviews. Check the stock price history.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a hard look at the corporate culture