Pros

In the area that I work, the ability to balance work and family life is excellent. I have never held a job in which I've been able to have this much flexibility. That in itself offsets a lot of other issues with the personnel decisions they make.

Generally, the employees are fairly close knit as well. There are attempts to have "fun" days such as "Michigan vs. Michigan State Day," and even a few on site employee luncheons.

Cons

Lear lays off employees at an alarming rate, even in the profitable times. They are also very short term thinkers, and seemingly rely on the stock performance to make their decisions rather than what is truly best for the product and the expertise. Lear seems to ignore true technological advances in favor of saving a penny, even if the investment in that technology will save them money in the long run.

Training is given lip service, but it has always been difficult to get external courses like software training or SAE development courses approved. It again fits the profile that Lear is not at all interested in the technological expertise that they have at their disposal, nor do they want to feed it.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management must have more faith in their engineering process and long term planning. They need to realize that they really aren't as very well trusted by their employees as they seem to think they are. They should know that the moment a company wide email goes out praising the employees as the backbone of the company, every employee gets ready for the inevitable layoff.