Freescale Semiconductor Reviews

Pros

Work From Home any time you want. Decent salaries. Good benefits. Management treats employees in a respectful manner. You can talk to any one in the organization and be listened.

Cons

Not very challenging, many other good companies in town. Stocks are plummeting. Far below the leaders in the sector. There are no great opportunities to move forward in your career.

Pros

Opportunities to try different roles

Cons

Slow growth in Austin headcount

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work.

Pros

Motorola was great; freescale not good

Cons

No recognition; favoritism from management

Advice to Senior Management

Need employee development; opportunity to take on new challenges; transparent

Pros

Paycheck and health benefits are the best reasons to work at Freescale. Due to poor business climate, every year was wrought with the fear of layoffs.

Cons

It became obvious that the main concern of management was to protect their own jobs. The folks that got hammered during the many layoffs were most often the most qualified and long time employees.

Advice to Senior Management

The management team at Freescale needs to show more respect to the individual contributors. They also need to communicate better to employees and have a clear path for future growth. Management needs to get on the ball, be pro-active instead of reactionary.

Pros

Great people and skill sets

Cons

Management not looking long term

Advice to Senior Management

Loyalty and employee value should be rewarded

Pros

Learn a lot if you want to!

Cons

Hard to be promoted internally!

Advice to Senior Management

Retain talents and give enough promotion opportunities to veteran

Pros

- Very Talented Employees
- Excellent number of PTO days (new Employees get 4 weeks of PTO, with a one week increase at 8 years and 15 years)
- Able to move within the company (but in most cases, the individual must chat with senior leadership)
- Freescale has successfully worked hard to turn a profit for many quarters (but they still have to buy down a huge debt)
- Freescale produces quality products

Cons

- Company still has too much debt from when they went private
- Poor Medical Benefits
- No stock options for non-management employees
- Received a lousy keychain when company IPO'ed
- Poor Employee Compensation
- Lay off US employees and immediately hired abroad
- Need more new hires. Employees worked to the breaking point.
- Need to hire Interns, CO-OPs, and fresh outs to get a fresh perspective. The US staff is aging.
- Some of the groups have a "That's not how it's always been done before" attitude.
- Career advancement is very difficult
- Freescale infrastructure is aging and not being maintained (buildings are falling apart, service contracts are being cancelled or reduced)

Advice to Senior Management

Start compensating talented workers. Have solid roadmaps and plans for the future. Start caring more about the employees and less about Blackstone and making investors happy.

Pros

Benefits, PTO, fair salary, decent work hours

Cons

Inside network of managers who promote marginal employees

Pros

The people are what makes the company what is (and so will help you to stick around longer than what you originally planned). Technology is solid and some business units have their act together to provide solutions that are compelling for the market.

Cons

- No employee development or career ladder at the company. You have to fight and threaten to leave in order to move to another position. They have tried to establish an employee development program recently, but this is just a box that HR is 'checking off' - it has not changed the situation.

- Compensation is poor. Minimal yearly increases you would expect are non-existent. Most people interview with competitors and get counter offers in order to increase their salary (at least FSL will fight to keep you and raise your salary).

- Managers do not back you up. They focus too much on relationships with outside vendors, partners & distributors which means if you can't play politics then you are OUT.

- There is not trust. Roadmaps, strategy and information is not shared openly.

- The company has no strategy. For the last 5 yrs. the only focus has been to become public again. This mentality has not changed since we have become public. Now what? We lack vision.

- Employees have worked hard to get the company in a position to become public again. And have done so in a challenging environment where they had to do more with less (ie. less employees). They have squeezed their employees to their limit. No rewards for this accomplishment have been given to date other than a celebratory piece of cake at a lunchtime gathering. I guess they figure we should all be happy to have jobs.

- Really good, talented people are leaving in droves.

I have seen not once or twice, but three instances where excellent, top notch performers have been treated very poorly and have been fired, demoted or brushed aside for political reasons. HR has absolutely no clue. This most definitely is not the ethical company it makes itself out to be.

Advice to Senior Management

Yes, you must focus on the business, but remember the people who have gotten you there in the first place. And as far as not trusting each other - come on guys..... we work for the same team.

Pros

Still have mfg in the USA

Cons

No loyalty to employees, mediocre pay and benefits

Advice to Senior Management

Nice that we IPO'd, too bad the employees didn't share any of the rewards other than a lamo medallion