Hewlett-Packard – “If you want to be kicked like a dog, come work here!”

Pros

Most individual contributors are wonderful caring people who, if given a chance by management, could reinstill the founding partner's belief that the company was a place that valued people, relationships, talent, and the feeling that we were part of a "family" who cared about each other just as much as we cared about moving the company forward.

Cons

The new management operating model, a top down hierarchy, where no one questions decisions being handed down by the leadership team, and where the bullwhip is passed from each level of management downwards until it cracks over the heads of the individual contributors who are treated like oxen in a yoke and are constantly reminded that they should exhibit the company's leadership standards or probably need to look elsewhere. If your career goals don't include being a manager and you actually have the audacity to voice the opinion that you want to be an individual contributor who makes a valuable contribution to the company via work on programs or projects, you are told you are not fitting the "new model" the company is embracing. In other words, "All square pegs please resign now because we want cookie cutter people who are cold, hard business people that don't have time to be nice to one another."

Managers call their employees all hours of the day and night and expect that their people will be there to take meetings after hours. They insist you give them your home phone, cell phone and any other contact information in case they need to reach you immediately. They abuse your private time.....worse, they don't recognize that you should have private time.

People are rated not on their performance, but against the performance of others on their team. People are given lower ratings as a means to move them out the door the next time there is layoff. Deliberately. Groups are downsized by 20% yearly and work is piled on the remaining people to breaking point. You are expected to get your work done, but it takes a 15 hour day to do it (not always successfully) and your management will then chastise you for not taking vacation time. Work life balance will be mentioned. If you do take vacation time and you don't get the work done, you are then told you should have made sure the work was done.

Processes that supposedly "improve" efficiency end up costing more time and money because they are conceived and implemented by people who have absolutely no understanding of (or conversations with) the very people doing the work and who could give best practice input to the changes required. No, instead the very people who need their work streamlined are handed a process out of the blue that they had no input too, that adds more time to their work day, and that necessitates bandaids and workarounds to get the job done. If you express concern? "Hey, just accept it, and take a big step back, and add more hours to your day to deal with it."

Run! Don't walk away, from HP. If there were a human equivalent to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, HP would be closed down by now for the abuse they heap on their employees.

I can't wait till the economy is on the upswing and jobs are plentiful. I predict a mass exodus. I hope Hurd has a contingency plan.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember that happy employees are productive employees. Remember that no every person wants to be, or is, management material. The backbone of your company is not managers. It's the individual contributors upon which your very future exists. We are, after all, a technology company. Technologists are IC's! Wake up before it's too late and become humane.