GE Transportation Reviews

Pros

Real engineering work!!! The work is interesting, challenging and rewarding. The trains pass by the building for tests and you see your work directly! High level of skill and great co-workers!

Cons

Everyone is WAY TO QUIET and to themselves. Zero communication. HR is disorganised, disinterested and not knowledgeable of HR procedures. IT is a pain to deal with. Engineering is behind on current software.

Advice to Senior Management

Rack and stacking people before the employee appraisals? How does that work?! Better communication throughout the company and different teams would be nice. Fix your HR, they are horrible! Treat contractors like people!

Pros

Stability, reputation, market expansion, positive financial status, industry growth, Fortune 10 company. There is a lot of opportunity in all their divisions for career growth. GE looks hard at promoting within. Comfortable salaries that are very competitive with the current market. Many support groups, projects and associations for every type of person and every interest and need.

Cons

Company is large, and sometimes the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. Some procedures are archaic and confusing. Too many rules that differ between divisions; that have nothing to do with anything; or are outdated. Favorite "line" that occurs on a daily basis: "Wait for it......"

Advice to Senior Management

Slow down and stop looking so far ahead so quickly and fix the burdensome processes it takes to get there. Follow a more "KISS" protocol. Unify between divisions with only necessary variances.

Pros

being respected, teamwork, good communication between all levels, challenging company, perfect senior management, persistent, a good place to improve yourself

Cons

taking long time to make decisions and need to make the decisions quicker, sometimes it is not easy to get support

Pros

Always challenging whether good or bad economy, teamwork leading to get things done, leading technology, responsive and customer focused, persistent, rewarding,

Cons

Long work hours, some final solutions take time, gaps at different staff levels on business progress, sometime lack sufficient sources for smooth implementation

Advice to Senior Management

more employee touch-time, business information sharing, need more flexible when resources needed, some project planning could be done better and earlier

Pros

Great people, very experienced local leadership and engineering staff. Market leading technology and GE brand makes this a stable business. Small customer base allows for intimate technical and commercial interaction.

Cons

The railroad business is very risk averse and new technologies are shunned until proven successful. Internal battles for company funding and staffing for engineering development are brutal.

Advice to Senior Management

CAT's purchase of EMD will create a new competitive environment. We need to respond with more technology investment to keep the edge.

Pros

The GE name on your resume.
Own a product or process from beginning to end.

Cons

Lots of politics.Absolutely no training provided. Past due jobs get assigned to you. Random assignments thrown at you and are asked to figure it out at your own. No structure to the learning process. This way learning is severely affected. No guidance or support or mentoring provided to new employees. Multiple people watching over your shoulder and you are doing the job all by yourself. Constant pressuring to complete jobs by deadline (even past due jobs), doesn't matter even if there is a learning curve. People in charge don't want to listen or hear what the actual problems / issues are. They just want the job done. Extremely bureaucratic and chaotic. Disorderly and lots of confusion. Highly understaffed.

Advice to Senior Management

Acknowledge the fact that people at the bottom of the career ladder do make a difference. Their effort does make a contribution to the company bottom line. A slight praise or a 'Thank you' could probably help in renewed motivation to keep performing.

Pros

- Good if you just graduated from College
- Training opportunities
- Diversity awareness
- Small headquarters. Therefore, high probability of upper managment exposure
- Most of the managers understand the concept of Work–life balance
- Healthy Leaving awarness and program
- Erie is safe, cheap and friendly

Cons

- A lot of people get good jobs because they are good seller of themselves, not exactly good performances (Networking)
- Few good Human Resources Managers
- IT support is almost null
- Poor Health Insurance
- In most of the cases, Company prefers to lose people than let them go with another GE Business (easier to move if are in an upper management level position)

Advice to Senior Management

Changes are good, but first you need to fix old processes before to start a new one. Need to analyze better the side effect/long term impact of big projects that look good in numbers ($).

Pros

Growing business with great people

Cons

Takes long time to move on decisions and organization changes

Pros

Name recognition on your resume (use this as a step to your next role) / Experience here will make any job elsehwere seem easy / Depending on your manager, flexibility with family needs

Cons

Turnover is extremely high / Very low morale and little sign of improvement / Annual salary increases are negligible (raises offset by increased benefits contributions) / No bonus or incentive compensation for performance / Health Insurance is awful (family out-of-pocket can exceed $7,000 annually) / Excessive workloads while layers of management increase / Advancement and career growth or severly limited (which creates more turnover) / Promotions are very political and gratuitous

Advice to Senior Management

1) Recognize the absurd turnover and take meaningful steps to retain staff. You do not value your people, regardless of what you say to the contrary, and lack credibility because of it.

2) The "Raise Your Hand" campaign lacks validity. You blatantly ignore requests from staff for help, and then blame those staffers for failures on the very things they identified and were ignored.

Pros

The pay is decent and the supplies are abundant.

Cons

Overall mood at word is not very optimistic.

Advice to Senior Management

Try and reduce the amount of turn-around of your employees.