Garmin – “Creative employees at Garmin are used and abused.”

Pros

Global name recognition. Benefits are good.

Cons

As a creative employee, I feel Garmin dismisses us as production artists. Most of all, HR and department heads outside of the creative groups have no idea what we do. And this is across the board from Industrial Design to Marketing. The major creative decisions made at Garmin are most often decided by people completely out of touch with creativity and style. I mean these guys (some of them) buy their clothes at Walmart and drive Ford Focuses. How do they qualify in deciding what looks nice? They have Engineering backgrounds and are interested in numbers, not colors. It makes no sense. Shouldn't the creative decisions be made by the Directors of creative departments and their employees?

As far as pay scale, Garmin still puts emphasis on engineering rather than creativity. And I know what some starting Engineers get paid out of college. Does $15k seem like a reasonable difference for starting salaries between engineering and creative? Get with the program, Garmin.

Advice to Senior Management

With its entry into the mobile segment, Garmin will be transitioning from an Engineering-driven company to a Marketing-driven company. Technology used to be Garmin's competitive edge when GPS was still shiny and new. But now it's a commodity and it's going to be more about identity and less about technology. The playing field has leveled in regards to technology. You hired creatives to do creative jobs because you couldn't. Respect us and trust us to do our jobs. Let our creative department heads decide what's good for Garmin's identity, not the guys wearing pocket protectors.

Put value in our work! According to the many salary surveys available online, Garmin is way behind the curve. And benefits are nice, but most companies have benefits. So that can't be your selling point anymore. "We know your salary is low, but you have great benefits!" Please.