Hewlett-Packard Reviews

Pros

NO strict office timings(though few managers insist), NO strict dress code, Work environment is great

Cons

Salary sucks and HP does nt pay to existing employees and instead hires new candidates paying much above the existing employees.
Your career is defined by Manager, if you dont have a good rapport with him/her..he can even say u have nt worked at all since last 1 year and screw up at the end and you will be dumbfolded, since there s no proper system to track ur work and reviews about ur manager is just a formality and on papers

Advice to Senior Management

Have a transparent system which can assess the employee in the organisation instead of giving control to Managers. They are not gods to decide a person s capabilitiies. And also mind it there are a lot of inefecient managers as well

Pros

This has been a great first job so far. Competitive salary, signing bonus, and relocation package (especially when considering the low cost of living in the area). There is plenty of interesting work going on here, and I work with some very smart engineers who are always willing to help me improve my skills. I never feel like I have my manager looking over my shoulder...I am free to spend my time at work (and outside of work) as I please, as long as I'm getting my work done. I can't imagine a software engineering job that provides a better work/life balance...definitely better than it was in school.

Cons

Morale, mostly. There are a lot of people here who are still feeling burned by upper management from the Hurd era. Leo was slightly better, but the sale/spin-off of PSG and the Touchpad issues made us all look sort of silly. Young employees (anywhere from 3-5 years older than me) are looking for employment elsewhere, for understandable reasons. They have seen few bonuses and even fewer raises during their time here. This past year has been different, but the changes came too late for them. Just about every young employee I know got a bonus or a raise AND a bonus, but many took a new job that started in January 2012...the train had already left the station.

Some project timelines are a bit unrealistic, and some of the older employees are being overworked because of it...but I can only speak well to my own personal experience. Your experience is very dependent on how good of a manager you have. Some are obviously better than others. Also, upper management in the Leo era was hilariously bad at communicating big, important changes to the rest of us. Things have gotten a bit better under Meg, but there hasn't been anything quite as earth-shattering as the potential PSG sale/spin-off either.

Advice to Senior Management

Hopefully management recognizes that they need to continue rewarding people for their hard work. Keep work expectations realistic. DON'T DO STUPID THINGS, but if you must, please give the rest of us a heads up.

Pros

Work life balance
Friendly employees
Good office facilities and benefits

Cons

Outdated technologies
Slow development environment
Low pay

Advice to Senior Management

Should be more profit oriented.

Pros

Stable
Flexible work hours
Car policy
Training
Leader in IT

Cons

Not the best in terms of salary

Pros

Reasonably secure environment (no major upheavals)
Market acceptance is good -- resulting in perceived credibility of the company

Cons

Bureaucratic and political; Sales is the only area 100% merit-oriented
A massive ship of state in the tech sector; very hard to act nimbly or be able to quickly respond to market changes, because of the ingrained ways of doing things and making decisions.
Always seeks a level playing field and will ignore being a first adopter, thus losing critical time-to-market advantages and missed opportunities.
Decision cycles are drawn out because so many people need to sign off on opportunities.
Not as entrepreneurial as it once was -- very hard to be intra-preneurial.

Advice to Senior Management

Break the divisions up into subsidiaries, and make them independent profit centers so they are forced to be competitive.
Re-establish a merit-based employment environment, to eliminate the slackers and politicians

Pros

Virtual office / home office is encouraged, work / life balance, decent benefits compared to other top tier companies (which does not say much about HP's peer set - because HP's benefits have gotten worse every year over the past few years).

Cons

As with anything, without a consistent management and leadership team, it's difficult to really understand the company I work for.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep a management team longer than one year.

Pros

great people, good management, flexible

Cons

the pay, really. been underpaid for years.

Advice to Senior Management

pay your employees what they are worth...otherwise they WILL look elsewhere

Pros

if you like processes work here

Cons

internal processes are awkward and making company very unflexible
too many managers

Advice to Senior Management

get a technology related degree

Pros

1. Learning new technology.
2. People ( very competent engineers).
3. Allows telecommuting.

Cons

1. Top management instability in recent years.

Pros

Comfortable atmosphere to work and great benefits. This is a great place to start a career in sales and has a top notch training program.

Cons

Two Words: Senior Leadership

In sales, you can have a huge influence on a lot of things... none of which will be your paycheck. You have a better chance of predicting your winnings at a casino than what your commission check will look like.

Advice to Senior Management

A clear direction is required in order to keep quality employees.