Rain Bird – “CONSTANT TURNOVER! CONSTANT CRITICISM! ZERO EMPLOYEE LOYALTY, CHEWS PEOPLE UP & SPLITS THEM OUT. NOT A HAPPY PLACE!”

Pros

- Great Salary
- There are always openings!
- You live in the land of harsh winters and job despair and want a way out
- No other choice- bad economy!
- There are always openings!
- You are a sadomasochist

Cons

There are so many that you should think twice before coming to work at Rain Bird.
- Poor benefits in comparison to others in the industry hiring similar high caliber employee
- Unrealistic expectations levied on the backs of understaffed job functions and overworked employees
- Subjective nature of feedback is always a moving target
- No one has empowerment other than Tony, only a false sense power
- Crazy penny pinching approach to the smallest items, i.e non reimbursement of .50 charge airline miles charges on rental cars, poor man's hotels, no corporate credit card - use your own for company business but no reimbursement of finance charges.
- Business operates as a cash cow commodity business but packages itself and a market leader
- Little to no concern as to employee job satisfaction, or empowerment.
- No formalized training programs, only a sink or swim concept with weighted boots.
- They tout they hire the brightest and best.... what they don' t tell you is most level with the first 2 years.
   Many superior individuals have walked through these doors and back out again.
- Highest rate of turmoil and turn over I have ever seen in 18 years of corporate experience estimate
  somewhere around 70% in less than 2 years.
- Company hides behind Rain Bird culture to explain away turn over, and poor treatment of employees. - No work life balance just work, little recognition, management focuses more on criticism and fault finding to motivate workers
- Work under constant pressure of not knowing if you'll get laid off, fired, demoted or you job will be moved to Mexico.
- No communication of vision from owner at the worker levels, divisions are encouraged to stove pipe information. C
- Cooperative resource leveraging and thought leadership between division is discouraged.
- Paranoid view of employees and information access many times getting in the way of your ability to perform you job functions, intently set on not letting anyone figure out the big picture.
- Constant turmoil of new folks coming and going, no systematic approaches to job functions, management unaware staff job requirements, driven more on senior bonus programs.
- Goals are not common among the group, cooperation is poor as everyone marching to different drummers.
- Company puts out org chart only to the senior staff everyone else is kept in the dark all is word of mouth, making coordinating the simplest tasks very difficult in a timely manner.
- Senior management and HR high turnover as well, come naively thinking they can make a difference and leave discouraged at the lack of empowerment to make change.
- Owner does not even use a computer, old school, admin prints out email, email responses are written out and admin puts it back in.
-Computer systems outdated, software packages cumbersome and dated, revision plans moving target

Advice to Senior Management

Lots of study on well managed companies.
Empowerment, Empowerment, Empowerment!
Invest in your employees as invaluable assets, appreciate there accomplishments, staff adequately!
Stop the constant negativity and criticism, encourage and empower calculated risk taking.
Delegate authority down the chain, stop the cons of silence and the subjectivity.
Make the Rain Bird Culture mean something other than an excuse for poor corporate behavior and mismanagement of employees.
Tony should communicate in open forums, take the time to listen while encouraging a non-retribution open and frank discussions.
If you hire the brains, the skills... the best and don't let them contribute to the levels they can it is a waste to hire at these levels. Consider your employees as stakeholders in the companies success!
PEOPLE Not Cattle, PEOPLE not inanimate objects, PEOPLE with much to give --LISTEN!
RAIN BIRD HAS POTENTIAL FOR GREATNESS, BUT NOT THE WILL.