France Telecom Reviews

Former Employee – worked at France Telecom

Pros – The best reasons to work for France Telecom inlcude the good benefits offered by the company. medical and life insurance beenfits are better than typical US corporations. In addition they seem to have focused on creating an environment that fosters a positive work/life balance for all employees. An added benefit is exposure to international business and culture.

Cons – A few of the downsides of workign at France Telecom include, but are not limited to, the apparent lack of management direction. Often it is difficult to understand the direction the company has chosen to move in and frustrating that management seems to lack the ciritical organizational skills necessary to implement the plans.

Advice to Senior Management – make decisions faster and reward individual initiative

Current Employee – been working at France Telecom

Pros – If you are self motivated, this place provides you ample opportunity to grow professionally, network in the industry provided you are ready to utilize your personal time substantially on top of the working hours!!

Cons – -You are measured by number of hours you spent at work and number of times you approach upper management to tell them we are happy at work NOT by how efficiently you can work
-No clear cut work definition so one can not be rated for performance
-Hostile telecommute policy
-Everybody is a project manager and there is no growth unless you become director. Qualification for becoming a director is ability to play extreme politics and want to spend lot of your personal time in doing additional work for company
-Salaries are not at all at par with industry but once you are with company for more than few years you have good number of personal time off
-Human Resource dept/person does not know what human resources mean and is not approachable

Advice to Senior Management – -Have company briefing at least once a month
-Have informal employee gathering once a quarter
-Take anonymous feedback/performance review for upper management
-Hold HR responsible for their mistakes
-Have a structured organization where people are rated by performance
-Encourage and manage telecommute
-Pay bonuses and salary hikes on time

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at France Telecom

Pros – covers all the aspects of the telco industry, challenging in its innovation, low to medium pressure, lot of opportunity to learn

Cons – lot of middle management and processes, lack of driving very technical people, can be exhausting to fight the system.

Advice to Senior Management – drive more, protect from the processes

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at France Telecom

Pros – if don't want too much pressure and have an inbuilt system to blank the crap that happens in the office ..from senior management ..and the terrible leadership ability of the CEO..then this is good for u.

Cons – well these are the events that have happened to give you an idea of the downside... a lot of women have ended up getting fired...or have some issues with the the department CEO....mainly French staff have been promoted...lot of people have been let go after they have tried to voice their views and the CEO did not feel comfortable with that.. senior management do not have good business judgment to make a good call on which projects should move forward and which should be dropped.... Mainly most staff just spend loads of time hating the place which gets you down even more...sorry but this is how most people feel!!

Advice to Senior Management – Take some risks.. move out of management and spend time with staff.. be creative..

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at France Telecom full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – freedom to set up things, as long as it does not interfere with other projects
flexible work time to accomodate work/life balance

Cons – Very limited possible evolution outside of privileged programmes

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at France Telecom full-time for less than a year

Pros – Low work pressure, reasonnable pay, humane management style

Cons – Average age of emplyees is around 50 years, management will do all it can so you don't stand out from the croud meaning you get the same salary increase/ bonus whithout distinction of your performance or commitment. Basically, salary increase is only based on your seniority within the group. 70% of the employees are public servants that cannot be laid-off meaning they have no incentive to improve their productivity

Advice to Senior Management – Pay public servants an early retirement plans and get people back to work before France Telecom loses all sense of initiative and becomes a huge retirement home.....

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 France Telecom full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Technology-driven and lots of technical experts provide solid knowledge and lots of innovation in mobile world.

Cons – Bureaucratic and difficult to progress / operate optimally if not French-speaking.

Advice to Senior Management – Simplify processes!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at France Telecom full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - Good Work/life Balance
- a lot of Career Opportunities if you want to completely change your job
- level of pressure : acceptable

Cons – - huge company = everything is going very slowly
- not very dynamic on the web / mobile
- HR are here to handle the number of employees only

Advice to Senior Management – Better consideration of new media to develop the business

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at France Telecom full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Big company, paying attention to the well-being and development of employees (at least in France), good compensation package, and a lot of internal opportunities thanks to the size of the company. Good training policy.

Cons – I found processes and layers of management to be overwhelming sometimes. It does some good of course in some projects but it can also mean that simple and small projects become big projects as soon as you need to put them into production

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at France Telecom full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – - capacity to move from one position to another easily
- international company : interesting jobs in many countries
- work life balance very good, especially in France

Cons – - no career management
- low salaries
- lot's of red tape
- focus on limiting costs more than innovation

Advice to Senior Management – more rewards in line with the performance, stop only promoting poyltechnique guys, open your recruitment to other profiles

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company