GE Security Reviews

Pros

Good opportunity for personal and professional growth IF you take advantage of everything offered. Better than average benefits. Salary is low compared to national averages.

Cons

Don't expect your manager to discuss "career path" with you. You need to create and mold your own career path. Take advantage of education opportunities offered.

Advice to Senior Management

Work on improving your management skills. If you're not growing and improving every year, how can you expect improvement in those you manage?

Pros

If you like working in a corporate environment then maybe this is the place for you. You can advance but you need to be the type that enjoys corporate lingo and to be blunt it helps if you suck up to the right people.

Cons

Extremely corporate environment. You feel very much like a cog in a wheel and that is how they like it. They try to keep the threat of layoffs hanging over you to keep you under control.

Advice to Senior Management

GE Security is GE's attempt at entering the highly technical business of security technology. The company is composed almost entirely of acquisitions. That is also how I came to be part of GE Security.

However, GE applied their formula that has worked well for them in the past. That formula being to try and mass produce a technology with low skilled labor and to minimize the impact of a single engineer/scientist. Unfortunately, what they do not understand is that technologies in this sector are still burgeoning. They have to put more emphasis on R and D and put more value on the scientists and engineers that are researching the new technologies. If they keep acting like they are making locomotive engines and that they are working with a "mature" technology then they are in big trouble. Value your scientists and engineers.

Pros

GE Security shows an amazing amount of promise. It has strong acquisitions in video (VisioWave), access (Casi-Rusco), and fire (Edwards), and is finally making great strides to incorporate them all into an integrated security platform. If realized correctly, this surely will be a big player in the security industry. Dean Seavers shows great vision in leading the company in a growth-oriented direction. The company prides itself on compliance on all legal levels both in the US and worldwide.

Cons

General Electric is a company full of processes to ensure quality control and compliance at all levels. While most of these are extremely valuable and must be maintained, at times the bureaucratic nature of the organization prevents it from making quick navigational strides in order to compete with the smaller, leaner security players in the market.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to focus on integration, as this is the direction the market is taking, and spend less time on so-called "boxed solutions". While distribution will continue to be a strong market, the bigger wins can be realized with the larger, integrated projects.

Pros

It is large enough that you can network with literally thousands of people. I'm a firm believer that a company's worth is measured by the quality of the people who work there, and GE inherited (through several acquisitions) some truly dedicated professionals.

There are always opportunities to advance, since (in my tenure) there was a lot of turnover.

Cons

For such a large company, I was surprised by the absence of processes when I joined. I have worked for family-owned businesses that took better care to provide computer backups, for one example.

Promotions often seemed overly influenced by the "diversity" of the candidates (as opposed to their qualifications). I was verbally discouraged by one HR manager from applying for a job because I did not have the pair of chromosomes they wanted.

Advice to Senior Management

Centralizing in Florida has sucked the energy out of the other centers of excellence, which were driving policy and innovation for the company long before Bradenton joined. Those acquired companies in the distant outposts feel less investment in GE's success because the division has become too "top-down" from HQ.

Pros

Colleagues are phenomenal to work & socialize with. The business retains strong corporate/parent sponsorship despite continual challenges to deliver against expectations. Great opportunities for career development while executing in a difficult environment.

Cons

The company continues to struggle for a coherent market identity due to it's legacy of acquisitions; after 5 years of integration attempts only recently have the silos started to melt and "GE" penetration taken effect. There is constant leadership turnover as the heritage managers start to fade and the GE-fed talent moves across the corporate umbrella.

Advice to Senior Management

Dean Seavers is the most promising senior executive over the 5 years. The external focus revival is adequate, but deep seeded internal department barriers need to be removed.

Pros

Good to start your career and move on. You career opportunities are based in who you know and not in your performance.

Cons

Structure is not there, they take to long to decide anything, and there is no clear message on where the company is going, and at first sign of trouble they take on head count.

Advice to Senior Management

The most important asset in the company is their employees, so invest on them and make them feel that they have a place where they can work with confidence.