Gennum Reviews

Pros

Roles are very well defined and respected
You can learn a lot of diferent tasks
Open to implementing new ideas
Work on advanced technologies

Cons

Can be hard on work-life balance (depending on unit)
Management has a hard time recognizing problems and acting quickly
A lot of effort is spent on extinguishing fires instead of preventing them
Employees need better salaries. You can not expect to get the best and brightest if you offer average salaries

Advice to Senior Management

Implement a retention program for critical personnel
Projects need to be planned realistically
Listen to youre emploiees

Pros

Solid extended benefits, great vacation benefits.

Cons

Poltical environment where backstapping and undermining of colleagues is the norm. Management supports it or just looks the other way. The new management and board of directors have simply engaged in a window dressing exercise and failed to execute on their plans to grow the company 5 to 6 times their current revenue. The financials of the company over the last 5 years pre and post new management supports this reality. In fact looking at their financials in this light one sees revenue as being generally flat since the new management and board of directors have taken over. Recent prouncements by management about sucessful revenue growth does not mention that most of this growth was through the acquisition of another company and not organic. Management has failed to capitalize on the only remaining inflexion points it had been exposed to and will never breakthrough the $200m in revenue threshold let alone $175M.

Advice to Senior Management

Start seeking a buyout.

Pros

Good , dedicated and smart people.

Cons

The direction of upper management is not clear.

Pros

Flexible hours
Got paid on time
People are nice
Work environment (office) is nice
Head-Office location is in a nice city (# 3 city to live in Canada, according to MoneySense)

Cons

Upper management focused on lining pockets instead of creating actual value.
Political environment instead of performanced-based.
No clear set of objectives set by management (objectives set late in the year, where they are impossible to achieve, hence no bonuses.)
No company loyalty towards employees
Creating a class culture of haves and have-nots at Gennum.

Advice to Senior Management

Rule #1: Upper Management should work at creating shareholder value. No shareholder value created overtime should equal no bonuses, special incentives, long-term incentives or stock options. Just look at the $6.4M in incentives already awarded in 2011 to a select few. They are robbing shareholders of value (look at the share price of the last 4 years).
Rule#2: Special incentives need to be amortized overtime, which lowers EPS even lower than it would be. However, upper management doesn't care (or understand) as they will walk away with their money and not care about the rest of the empoyees.

These are signs of significantly bad management. If you can, stay away from this company.

FYI, I did not get fired (as I may sound disgruntled), I quit... There are much better opportunities out there.

Pros

Good Stable company to work for
Great people

Cons

Poor leadership and company direction

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the experience there, instead of getting rid of them or letting them go.

Pros

Bonuses were good in the early 2000s .

Cons

New CEO cares less about employees vs the previous ones, and his decisions made the company worse off.

Advice to Senior Management

Attempt to manage a bad situation so that it is profitable, rather than cutting and selling a potentially lucrative business and in the end just making your company worth less that it would have if you just did your job.

Pros

No other alternatives in this region at the moment

Cons

No clear planning for future

Advice to Senior Management

Better evaluations of the resources abilities and better planning. They are asking everybody to work with motivation but there is small reward to go beyond normal job.

Pros

Only Semiconductor company in the area with a positive outlook.
The company is growing and winning in key markets.
Products are innovative even though they leverage a lot on legacy manufacturing technologies.

Cons

Very immature first line management.
Many first line managers are good engineers that got promoted into the role but have no clue how to be a manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Define better ways of training new manager and measuring their performance as managers

Pros

-gain experience about a variety of topics and work with experienced engineers

Cons

-smaller work environment causes lots of gossips and small talk
-unreasonable firings

Advice to Senior Management

they should start promoting engineers to become management.

Pros

Good respect for family life balance. The Burlington area is quite nice. The people who work at Gennum are very friendly.

Cons

*Extremely* political place. Even though there is new senior management and some changes, there are still a huge number of people who 'started with the first brick'. There is a "not invented here" attitude.

Middle and upper managers are often not true to their words.

The company pays a great deal of lip service to the concept of bring in new industry best practises, but when it comes down to it, they have a great deal of difficulty in accepting new ideas and the ways to change things.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop the politics. Pay attention to the exit interview comments. Be honest.