GE Reviews in Atlanta, GA Area

Pros

World class people
GE allows you to jump functions, businesses and locations ... very rare
Teaches you how to be truly global
Very Challenging Work

Cons

Big company so lots of Beaucracy
Short term focus due to intense financial focus
Lots of change

Pros

great place to get experience. there are great leadership examples. Good treatment to minority employees. good chance to work overseas.

Cons

Due to being large it can be old fashined. certain leaders can be quite authotratic. benefits are not the best in class.

Advice to Senior Management

should give more emphasis on the core IT structure. Certain leaders haev no hands on experience in their field resulting in trial and error type of decision making.

Pros

-Leadership Programs are designed to create future leaders/managers
-Great training and development opportunities
-Great work/life balance, ability to work from home
-Lots of visibility and exposure to leadership early in career
-Employees are very helpful and interested in growing new hires
-Managers are competent
-Size of company makes lots of opportunities available, employees can easily move between different GE business
-Good processes and best practice sharing
-Global exposure, even for interns and new hires
-Very intelligent employees
-Sense of pride in working for a company with so much history
-Clear vision and direction set by leaders
-Leaders are honest and open

Cons

-GE expects you to move every 2 years to move up
-Lots of bureaucracy and politics
-Extremely matrixed and confusing organizations, simple tasks require approvals and sign-offs from hundreds of people
-GE is sometimes like a cult
-Employees dont actually understand our products, competitors, etc (and mgmt likes it that way)
-Suck-ups that do B.S. work for leadership move up
-Few opportunities in major cities (NYC, LA, Chicago)
-Salary is below market, no overtime pay
-Lots of work done by offshore contractors, often results in low quality work due to short contracts focused only on quick development
-Too "number" focused, everything must have a financial benefit (increased satisfaction is never a reason to pursue an initiative)
-People are expendable

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on people. Recent decisions (i.e. new benefits package) have made many employees frustrated.

Pros

GE is one of the best places to get manager training. They have well developed processes even if they don't necessarily get used. Their Six Sigma and IMLP training pays off in the real world

Cons

Hyper aggressive cost based culture. As much as it can build people up, it will also tear people down and a lot of fast risers will often get "boiled" if they stay too long.

Also the company is so large that one side may not know what the other side is doing.
Also GE tends to hire a lot of seasoned workers from other companies such as AT&T. This will have an influence on management which can create a hostile work environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep on auditing your processes. Also, your ombudsman program is a sham.

Pros

Experience, Leadership, Reputation, Opportunity, Growth, Rewarding and Inspirational

Cons

Performance Appraisals can sometimes mean that a employee may not receive a favorable performance review eventhough he/she is an exceptional employee. Unfortunately, or fortunately depand on where you stand most everyone is expceptional, the best of the best or they probably would'nt be working for GE so it makes it tough to reward everyone on a system that bases performance reviews on a Top 3rd, Middle and teh Bottom 10%. Regardless of the Bottom 10% actual performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Be fair in a difficult system. Coach all employees. Mentor new employees

Pros

Big name company looks good on resume

Cons

100 layers of mgmt and as you move up the layers each layer gets more incompetent, crappy pay, ridiculous emphasis on six sigma which the proof is right there that it is useless

Advice to Senior Management

Fire yourselves

Pros

Corporate Culture provides strong fondation for overall business skills.

Cons

Large company sometimes turns very slowly.

Advice to Senior Management

NA

Pros

Money and benefits were good. There is a lot of room for promotion if you're willing to play the politics.

Cons

Watch your back. People working for General Electric are way too competitive. If you want to get promoted you have to be on your game at all times.

Advice to Senior Management

Relax the business etiquette so that employees feel more comfortable. Offering a BBQ every once in a while doesn't make up for the fact that the people working for you are miserable.

Pros

good exposure to people and processes

Cons

office politics is excessive . . . too much office fat not hussling

Advice to Senior Management

get back closer to Jack Wech system . . . six sigma . . . . .currently too much office fat . . in us and over seas

Pros

Flexible work environment is a positive. No one watches your comings and goings. Very good, comprehensive on the job training. There is a great deal of autonomy.

Cons

The salaries are typically below market for the level of responsibility given. Bonuses are reserved for the very small minority. There is very little work/life balance, and it is not a high priority for higher level executives.

Advice to Senior Management

Compensation and promotions should be based upon merit, not driven by geographic or diversity metrics established by corporate.