Exxon Mobil Reviews in Torrance, CA

Former Employee – worked at Exxon Mobil full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Good benefits, nice facility, structured corporation and policies.

Cons – Reduction in headcount, freeze in hiring = more work and less pay per hour on average.

Advice to Senior Management – Engineers keep quitting, do something about it.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Exxon Mobil full-time

Pros – Good starting pay
Stable job environment
Plenty of career opportunities if your willing to travel
Strong culture of safety
Gas discount at the pump
Interesting and varied work

Cons – Low workforce moral. The culture is toxic. Although, this is highly dependent on where you work as the culture of each site/office can vary widely. The low moral is everywhere - from entry level to managers. Nearly everyone is either openly bitter or discontent. People stay primarily to receive a paycheck in order to pay their bills. Very few workers are actually happy to be there and come to work because they enjoy it. Negativity is quite pervasive. I can literally count on one hand how many times I've heard someone make positive comments in all my years here. On the other hand, I can fill a book with the number of negative comments.

Very high attrition rate. Younger folks are leaving all the time. Those who have been around longer seem to be imprisoned with golden handcuffs, and are literally waiting around to hit that magic age when they can finally retire and collect their pension. Management seems to care less that people are constantly leaving before their prime.

Clandestine ranking system. Highly subjective and not a true meritocracy as it’s very dependent on what managers "think" about you and not so much on actual work output. Perception is everything. If you’re not willing to pucker-up your lips and schmooze, or you don’t get along with your manager, you can kiss your career good-bye.

Pay is good for new hires and drops off sharply thereafter. The pay eventually plateaus unless you are continuously promoted. No bonus of any kind of profit sharing unless you are a higher level manager.

Lack of accountability or expectations. People are rarely held accountable for their actions – especially managers. Roles and responsibilities are written down, but not consistently followed or enforced. Positions are literally reinvented as new people rotate into them.

Poor management. Too many new managers who have no idea how to manage, and older managers who would rather be individual contributors, or simply don’t care anymore and are just waiting to retire. The good managers are few and far in-between. Unfortunately, they tend to rotate away and never comeback. Management provides little vision or direction. Most of them are just checking the box and trying to survive to their next rotation. Managers keep implementing new initiatives and reorganizations when they are absolutely clueless as to their chances for success. There is no acknowledgement as to why past initiatives failed and why these new ones will work. The managers like to point fingers and rarely take ownership and blame for their shortcomings. Heaven forbid it’s ever management’s fault for something as that would damage their careers, which seems to be their only concern. There is a so much rotational movement in management that there is an endless cycle of initiatives, agendas, and policies.

Refining business has been tough since the economic downturn. ExxonMobil treats production sites and the workers there like a commodity that can be bought or sold at anytime. Unless you’re a high level manager, you will be sold to the highest bidder at the right price.

Lazy workforce that is extremely contractor dependent. The contractors tend to do most of the real work.

Tons of procedures and guidelines on almost everything. The problem is, not everyone follows them or even know they exist. As a result, the vast majority of guidelines and procedures are not accurately followed and simply ignored.

Very little training. All the training is focused on safety and you are rarely trained on actually how to do your job. Only operations/maintenance workers tend to have some type of set training plan. Otherwise, it’s a free for all and you are left on your own to figure out how to do your job if your manager isn’t proactive in developing you.

Safety culture is a bit too strong, even in comparison to other ExxonMobil sites. All everyone talks about is safety and its been taken to an almost painful extreme. Everyone is forced to do field observations each month. Most people think its a joke exercise - something forced upon them by management. Very few people actually believe in it, but its taboo to say that openly.

Advice to Senior Management – -Drop the arrogance, your not that good
-Relate with your workforce more, show that you actually care
-Improve the workplace culture

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Exxon Mobil

Pros – +Financial stability of company
+Good culture of working together
+Industry leader in technology
+Strong safety culture

Cons – ExxonMobil's entire corporate culture is a function of its ranking system. In a nutshell everyone in an range of jobs is force-ranked. So you are either listed as the #1 employee, the #27 or the #100 or anywhere in between. In theory it is an objective way to move the best people to the top and show the worst people the door. It's extremely political and is more of a popularity contest for everyone except maybe your own manager.

What is messed up is that if you are not in the top 10% then Exxon basically treats you like your career is completely worthless and you are lucky just to be there. I have worked at Exxon for about 10 years, I have ONLY been in the top 1/3 and was basically told "we're moving you to a job that you don't want and won't be good at, but we don't really care about you. Someone else needs to check a box and you are in the job that they need to check it."

Unfortunately, the whole system is run by the people that did well in it, so as far as they know the system works well. It promotes people that think, act and talk like them. They keep getting more and more money and better and more interesting jobs. As far as they're concerned all the other people in the company should count themselves lucky just to have jobs.

Advice to Senior Management – ExxonMobil really needs to realize that people are not a commodity product. The rank system, while flawed, could remain but they really need to evaluate the outputs of it. In a bad economy people will stay around just because they don't want to risk not having a job. In a good economy though, everyone will jump ship to any other company that pays them well and actually respects their employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Exxon Mobil

Pros – Good Retirement at age 55, Job Security, Good Pay

Cons – Overtime is all the time and mandatory, they do not assist you when you need time off, Contract is up every 3 years risking potential strike or lockout, you are treated horribly, you work nights/weekends/holidays/days = 12-16 hour rotating shifts, you are put in "catch 22" scenarios on a daily basis, and with 10 supervisors telling you to do different things it makes work harder than it should be, the job is dangerous, and if something happens to you they find a way to make it your fault! Good Luck!

Advice to Senior Management – You'll have better production & reliability if your workers want to be here. Treat them better and make there job easier rather than creating more red tape on a daily basis to protect yourselves. I also believe that Exxon Mobil is a great Corporation but certain locations are better than others to work at. If you want to be happy here, do not be a Process Operator.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Exxon Mobil

Pros – Pay and benefit are one of the best, 401k and/plus pension plan.
Work is not back breaking, very relax, no pressure.
Fun to work.
Lots of overtime.
Management care for everyone's safety, safety being their first priority then our environment.
No slowdown or employee lay-off. Lay-off is a word that is not in their vocabulary.
A lot of employee give aways, gifts and rewards for being safe, quarterly luncheons and off-site team building get together.
They provide yearly supply of work uniforms. I don't need to buy my own work clothes, yearly supply of work boots.
I can order any hand tools, power tools, measuring tools and equipment that I need for the job.
Regular supplies of coffee, creamer, drinking bottled water, refreshing gatorade soda cans all year round especcially during the summer.

Cons – I started working when I was 15 years old for a lot of small and big companies and I CAN NOT THINK OF ANY
DOWNSIDES OF WORKING FOR EXXONMOBIL. Like any other companies they are not perfect and these are not
considered downside of working at Exxonmobil

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good and excellent work and I'll do mine.
Let's continue making money.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Exxon Mobil

Pros – The benefits and stability of the company give a feeling of security. Salaries tend to be on par with similar jobs in the industry. Depending on the job function and the individual, opportunities are available to take numerous assignments in a relatively short period of time. I have been impressed by the quality of my peers and a general willingness to help -- more experienced employees are happy to share their knowledge and often serve as informal mentors. Certain areas of the company seem to genuinely encourage a healthy work / life balance while others are making an effort to move toward a more flexible and employee-friendly workplace.

Cons – Employee morale is generally low. Formal feedback tends to be vague and lags behind by over a year, making it difficult to improve in rankings. Career development is often dependent upon the direct supervisor, who may or may not make an effort to provide growth opportunities such as training or special assignments. Senior management is far removed from the entry- or mid-level employee and communication regarding goals and objectives are often contradicted as it moves down through the layers of management. Younger employees feel unheard, not respected, and often taken for granted. In recent years, a number of employees have left the company for a competitor -- not for a new position or even better pay / benefits. They simply found that they were treated better.

Advice to Senior Management – Communication from the top down should be clear and consistent. Effort should be made to keep employees informed and feel that they are an important part of the organization. Morale issues should be addressed and changes should be made to allow individuals to grow both personally and professionally.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend