GE Infrastructure Reviews

Pros

You will always have an opportunity to try something new in the IT environment. During my time at GE I was put into roles where I had limited experience and given the training that would help me become successful in the role. I was also provided with coaching and mentoring that helped me ask questions and get the job done.

Cons

You will work like a dog to be successful. It is a 24/7 environment and its difficult to break the cycle once you get to performing in the organization.
There is a TON of bureaucracy in the company. You have to get approvals from a variety of people that know nothing about your project and its time consuming bringing everyone up to speed. Sometimes you feel like you are a salesman peddling your project to different people just to get them to approve it.

Advice to Senior Management

If we continuously change we will never reach the performing stage of group development. Once you feel like you get to that level then we shake it up and then shake it up again. This is good for the business but it gets discouraging for people doing the projects.

Pros

Compensation package. Opportunities to access positions within wider GE organization, if interested. Recognition outside GE. Training opportunities, if approved by manager.

Cons

Excessive short term focus. Absence of management support and clear direction. Paralysis due to bureaucracy. Repetitive management mistakes. Lack of recognition for employees' extraordinary efforts (sometimes). Performance appraisal system is not context-conscious.

Advice to Senior Management

Value the experience and commitment of good employees, recognize and reward them by contributing to their career development. Retain productive and faithful people.

Pros

payed for transportation, housing, and stipend.

Cons

job offers after internship were limited to specific majors

Advice to Senior Management

be more open to other majors

Pros

Work with great people, lots of variety and opportunity for advancement. Great matrix organization with ability to interact with top level management on regular basis. Benefits are good and management awards are a plus. Review process is lengthy but can be great if you have a great manager that is a mentor as well. Opportunties for community outreach are also outstanding.

Cons

Work / life balance can be very unbalanced. The general culture within GE is to work longer hours. This can be hard for some. When you have a less than desireable manager, reviews can be difficult because you won't always get the mentoring you might need to achieve stretch goals. With that said, there are numerous ways to find mentoring elsewhere in the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Find a way to make work / life more balanced. At times it feels like the company has become too lean. Keep up the great work with management awards - employees truely appreciate it.

Pros

Hands on Experience. Resources available

Cons

Competitive, can be individualistic, low pay

Advice to Senior Management

Employee engagement

Pros

Great co-workers, great training programs. You learn a lot.

Cons

Long hours. Very political. No real leadership direction. New benefits package stinks.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your workers. Some people have great ideas! Engage the team and value your workers. Listen to your customers. If you take care of those 2 things, the company will do great.

Pros

GE has excellent training programs, and integrity is an important part of the culture. The people are fantastically smart! Lots of opportunity to move through different roles and businesses if you are willing to relocate.

Cons

A company of this immense size has a hard time getting out of its own way. The focus on process (6 Sigma) is often misapplied to services portions of the business. Engineers are revered - others, not so much. HR functions as kingmakers and are to be feared.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on better quality and innovation on the product side of the business to better keep up with the competition, but stop trying to force the services side into an ill-fitting 6 sigma formula.

Pros

Good experience with lots of exposure to the business. Moderate tasks and projects were given in terms of responsibility. Working for the company looks great on a resume.

Cons

Working in Cincinnati, you will be getting up early in the morning, but its nice getting off work around 3:00 p.m.

Advice to Senior Management

Management does a great job, but usually does not prepare very well for incoming/new co-ops and interns. Also sometimes work assigned may be tedious.

Pros

Benefits are good, Challenging work environment, the more responsibility you are will to take on the more that will be given to you

Cons

Compensation from peer to peer can vary drastically, Employee rating system can have detrimental affects on lesser known employees (managers with whom you have little interaction with can have too large of an impact on your career, punish the unknown to support their own), layers of bureaucracy can be difficult to navigate. Inorder to keep up the life in work-life balance will suffer.

Advice to Senior Management

Hard work needs to be acknowledged and rewarded.

Pros

GE without a doubt provides the best opportunties for gaining experience early on in your career. I was tasked with leading many projects I could not have imagined doing for another company.

Cons

GE's work life balance is not the best. The work-life issues seem to stem from people feeling pressured into putting in face time.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep investing in the leadership programs but work on fostering an atomosphere for a btter work-life balance that would boost morale.