Harris Reviews

Pros

Harris employs a lot of very bright and talented people. The technology can be cutting edge. Most of the people are friendly. I have never considered that I could be laid off between programs. We have fair medical and dental coverage. The sick leave policy is really good. We have marginal educational benefits, but we do have have them. I have stayed here because of the stability and diversity of the company. Top management is pretty sharp and seems to be slowly moving us in the right direction.

Cons

If you are a PhD and bring research dollars or customers to Harris you can pretty much write your own ticket, otherwise you must be part of someones "good old boy network" to get ahead. Being a high contributer on your annual review for years doesn't guarentee a promotion or even a raise. Positions are not always filled from within first. Jobs are not normally advertised on the internal job site before they are filled. Daily time card audits are annoying. Middle managers are many and usually quite protective of their big fish status in their own little pond. If you are an engineer that writes software or have a Computer Science degree, your opinion counts less than that of the the non software educated lead systems engineer, or other "real engineers" on the program. If you advance your educational degree while here, don't expect to automatically be offered a better position or a higher salary. You will have an easier path to advancement or management by leaving the company and returning than you do by being promoted. Old facilities, old computers, few windows, and less than optimal or ergonomic working environments. Shared offices with two or three people is common. As a Level IV Engineer with over 20 years in engineering and a masters degree, I was recently asked about moving to a cubical farm to make my office available for new hires. This type of request is all to typical.

Advice to Senior Management

Your employees are your greatest asset. Make advancement opportunities available equally and to all. Reward us when we advance ourselves. Keep the promises you made when you hired us.

Pros

Harris has competitive benefits and interesting projects. The employees are competent, and there is room to grow professionally... if you know the right people.

Cons

I came in as an engineer, but I got my MBA to transition into management. A year later, and I'm still being underutilized. Also, I didn't get any additional compensation for my MBA, so I'm being underpaid by about $20k.

The yearly review process is too dependent on your Group Leader, who may or may not do a good job representing you, especially if you never see your GL because he works in a different program area and is unfamiliar with your work.

Advice to Senior Management

If you are paying for employees to pursue advanced degrees, it is in your best interest to reward them with a relevant position upon graduation; otherwise, you are wasting your invested capital -- especially when other companies are willing to pay more and put them in the positions they were trained for.

Pros

Decent pay and benefits. Very good people for the most part (they never advance). Trying to diversify their products to stabilize the future.

Cons

Most managers are obsessed with self-promotion and not always what is best for the company. Many of these same managers have incredibly large egos and mistreat subordinates. The company is big and growing so fast that these managers are able to put on a happy face in front of their superiors, while mistreating others behind closed doors. The company is always supportive of these low character people, because the senior management is scared of controversy and confrontation. These managers will never mistreat you in front of their superiors, and they are skilled at not mistreating the employees in email or any other documented fashion. A majority of managers are your classic school yard bullies. If you are a bully, you will do good at Harris. Intimidation will go a long way there.

Advice to Senior Management

Show your employees that you value them by preventing intimidation and bullying. Take anonymous polls of exempt employees about their managers. They do not need to be public knowledge, but for your information. This will give you a true picture of some of the abusive managers that are overly jubilant when senior management is around. The morale of your exempt employees is at an all-time low, and it's like blood in the water for your managers that take a sick pleasure in abusing people that report to them. Begin to encourage an atmosphere of honesty and openess, and stop allowing managers to intimidate and bully people behind closed doors. Tell them that they should be willing to document anything that they are willing to say behind closed doors. The opportunity you are encouraging is harboring a culture of back stabbing and abuse of talented employees that managers keep down to prevent competition.

Pros

- Co-workers are down to earth and friendly, always willing to help new guys
- Job security is very good
- Laid back environment in Florida
- Excellent benefits
- 9/80 work schedule gives every other Friday off
- Excellent work/life balance

Cons

- Raises are given annually, but much more money can be made job hopping then returning again
- No windows

Advice to Senior Management

Higher raises are needed to keep turnover low. It's a great place to work, but people will continue leaving if they see that they can double their salary elsewhere.

Pros

Good benefits, location is also good if you like beaches, hurricanes, and hot weather 9 months out of the year. Some projects are interesting and challenging. Many of the staff are sincere, dedicated, and genuinely care about their co-workers and their company. Most of those are long time employees who already have status and position. Harris' contribution to critical communication technologies keeps many employees dedicated to the cause.

Cons

Too many long term employees have little experience at other companies, with the mistaken belief that the Harris way is the best way. The result is many with no initiative to improve the way things are done.

Some individuals use their position to their advantage at the expense of others. Peer competition is rewarded, NOT collaboration, and teamwork. Recent attempts to change the work culture with by HR have made marginal improvements. It will take many years and a big shift in the percentage of career employees before real change takes place.

 Inefficiency is rampant - there are tons of documented processes, continuously updated, which are often ignored. Poor planning is common, with panic leading to bad decisions, cost and budget overruns, and employee burnout. Many in upper leadership don't get the real story from middle managers due to the unpopularity of those who criticize or challenge them.

There is a high proportion of managers to employees and two entirely independent sets of management silos - administrative and project, both of which do seemingly little meaningful communication. This perpetuates a leadership lack of visibility of what happens at ground level, where it counts.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees, especially those new to Harris that offer ideas to improve things don't work at Harris and do work at other companies.

Reward teamwork, not individualism at the expense of peers. Use real rewards - substantial monetary compensation directly related to teamwork. Eliminate the mandatory skill level distributions and have all your employees be high performers. Dismantle the system that leaves only a few at the top of the heap.

Keep your employee performance ratings open and transparent, not a place where those leaders who don't play fair get free reign to misrepresent those who might challenging their status or the that of their personal favorites.

Tear down the run down buildings and keep employees centrally located at a single location where people are encouraged to communicate.

Pros

It is a large publicly traded company. Most of the other divisions do better than the BCD.

Cons

High turnover in the finance area. Some directors are not very good people leaders and would be more successful in a individual contributor role. Mediocre skills among many on the staff.

Advice to Senior Management

BCD does not seem successful and should probably be on their own.

Pros

Good Benifits. Fair Pay. Flexible schedule. Family Orientated.

Cons

Slow. Boring. Once you become hired by Harris, it is as if you are still looking for a job to do within Harris. Not very challenging.

Pros

Good benefits, salary, etc. Regardless of the bad things I descrive under "Cons" about some personnel at Harris, there are many talented and friendly people at Harris who will deserve your loyalty if you choose to work there.

Cons

Harris seems to have a very politically conservative culture. On some programs there are cliques of senior people who inject religion into that culture. There seem to be a lot of senior technical employees that prevent sharing of knowledge, don't apparently do much, but are somehow indispensable. I think a lot of people are just hanging on until they are able to or are forced to retire I think that many others have made their home at Harris because operate in ways that wouldn't be tolerated in a more urban or multicultural area. If senior technical people don't have enough to do, then they push junior employees aside, and make it seem like the tasks are otherwise worthy of them.

Advice to Senior Management

Maybe it is time to take the medicine and have some layoffs.

Pros

Provides great experience. Also has excellent integrity within management ranks.

Cons

Limited advancement opportunities. Recent management upheaval at senior leadership positions.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide more leadership opportunities and focus on core competencies in government contracting.

Pros

Harris puts its employees in a position to succeed and excel

Cons

while Harris is a decent size company with lots of opportunities around the globe. But I find it difficult to transfer to another location without any employee assistance program

Advice to Senior Management

improve the employee tranfer program