Hasbro Reviews

Pros

Fun work place
Half day Fridays
Get to play with toys

Cons

too many meetings that get in the way of work

Advice to Senior Management

Take ideas from more people

Pros

You are working with toys and goal is to bring job to kids. 15 days off and the office closes between xmas and New Years.

Cons

Outside of Hasbro there are few opportunities in Pawtucket for professionals and Boston is a long commute.

Pros

Hasbro management at the highest levels always seems to "walk the walk" about being a quality company that actually cares about its employees and customers above shareholders.

Cons

Because employee retention is generally high, upward career growth can be slow at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Beware of new middle-management who put their ideas/goals/strategy above the employees. It's a great way to lose valued people *and* not achieve many of those goals anyway.

Pros

If you like toys or games, this is your only option for employment besides Mattel. Also, the job is not that intellectually demanding

Cons

Also, the job is not that intellectually demanding and they seem to value "face time" over actually getting work done

Pros

Alot of exposure if you seek it. Ability to work with a variety of people. Tons of toys

Cons

Sometimes the sharing of information wasn't great.

Pros

nice benefits, fun product to work on, incredible creative talent, 3 weeks of vacation (starting) + holidays off, toy store employee discount (about 50% off), half-day Friday's year round (although its still a 40hr work week.

Cons

the cost cutting is insane lately, the annual bonuses are shrinking, marketing has taken over creative control, lack of employee parking, the buildings are over capacity which means 2-3 people sit where only one used to, the main Hasbro building is in the middle of Pawtucket (not Providence), about 1-2 miles from train station so a car is needed to work here (public transportation isn't easy), management (upper and mid-level) is clueless, the HR team here is completely ineffective, management has no clue what the creative teams actually do.

Advice to Senior Management

A company's innovation stops when they start creating product the consumer wants and not the product the consumer didn't realize they need. This is the case at Hasbro because marketing has taken over creative control and all we do now is rip off other toys already on the shelves. Give creative control back to the Designers.

Pros

You work with toys, which is a really interesting field to work in. There are many smart, motivated people working around you. Great benefits. Half-day Fridays year round. Fun environment and employee activities.

Cons

HR as a whole is incompetent and/or lazy. After they initially get you "in the door", they essentially leave you out to dry, with little to no guidance thereafter. Senior management also tends to cherry-pick their "superstars", who quickly rise the corporate ladder. Others are often left to languish in their positions for years. It's a very disorganized business, with senior management truly not understanding what their employees are working on. They're fed a lot of "yes" talk by their teams, while everyone below picks up the haphazard slack, with the SVPs and above none the wiser (either that or ignorance is bliss). Either way, it makes for a very disgruntled work environment where many different divisions *itch and moan about the same disorganization.

Advice to Senior Management

Revamp your HR team - I've worked at a number of companies and have never seen such ineptitude/laziness as here. Also, SVPs and above need to be more in touch with their teams (not just their direct reports) and be pro-active in understanding the real challenges their employees are under instead of relying on biased hearsay. Many people are dissatisfied with how the business is run and would probably be less so if they felt they weren't spinning their wheels everyday.

Pros

Good product range with a reasonable back catalogue of products.
Good market share and continued product development.
International market and good brand alignment.

Cons

Disappointing local management. Antiquated systems designed more about the production than sales. The business has become totally marketing driven with little ability to drive innovation in their relationships with their customers. The products are permanently on sale!

Pros

1/2 day Fridays
Movie Premiers
Week off between Christmas and New Years
Family culture

Cons

Lack of advancement opportunities
Pay is low compared to other companies in RI
HR processes not keeping with the direction the company is going. i.e. still alot of value placed in "face time" rather than working remotely.

Advice to Senior Management

Get with the times. If you are trying to transform, you must transform on all levels. Old processes will not support your new vision.

Pros

Hasbro is fun interesting and always changing. You get to play with toys literally all day. The work is fun and engaging.

Cons

There is limited opportunity for working in another industry outside of toy design once you have spent a couple of years at any toy company.

Advice to Senior Management

Cycle team members more often to bring fresher ideas into the mix. Assess the productivity of some meetings as they can some times lead to lost productivity.