Hewlett-Packard Reviews in Houston, TX Area

Pros

HP is Flexible on working hours, which is helpful. It's also great experience getting to work with the world's largest customers on a daily basis.The benefits are actually really good too!

Cons

It's difficult to advance in pay once inside the company. I'd push for as high a starting salary as possible because you won't be getting any "large" raises. Also it would be good if there were continuing education benefits (IE to work on your Masters). In theory the program exists, but the funding is so limited

Advice to Senior Management

Invest more in employee growth opportunities and make it easier for employees to advance internally. Getting higher compensation is like pulling teeth, even where warranted. It seems the way things are set up, they'd rather pay double the salary to an external candidate than hire internally.

Pros

Despite all that has happened, HP continues to develop and deliver to market some of the most innovative technology on the planet.

Cons

HP boasts that it is an organization that values and rewards performance. My experience, however, has been that this is increasingly not true. Over the last 5 or 6 years there has been a slow but steady decline in both pay and in employee benefits for the rank and file. Pays raises were first reduced to levels that did not keep up with inflation. They were then frozen and finally cut. With the most recent change in senior mgmt, those pay cuts have been rolled back but for most, current pay is still stuck at the same level as it was 3 years ago. Employee performance ratings and rankings, at this point, have very little impact on overall compensation.

The traditional HP pension plan was killed several years ago. At first, HP increased matching levels for its 401k program to compensate. About a year later those matching levels were lowered again. Concurrent with this, equity awards (e.g. stock options) were eliminated for non-management positions. Discounts for employee stock purchases were also eliminated. At this point there is no real way for the rank and file employee to participate in the rewards of good company performance.

While all this was happening, the total compensation packages for the most senior management have exploded in value.

Advice to Senior Management

Chasing after Apple’s “walled garden” model is not a visionary plan. It is not enough to “skate to where the market will be” and then simply out-build your competition. A visionary company identifies an opportunity and then creates a market around that. Until HP can get back into that mindset, it will struggle in the market.

Pros

1. Flexibility to work from home when needed
2. Exposure to leading technologies and market trends
3. HP looks good on a resume, good place to start your career

Cons

1. The only people who get paid what they are worth, are folks who come in from the outside - Dell, Cisco, IBM. The company has a hard "no raise" policy. So what happens is good people leave for a competitor, and they are back-filled by someone from the outside at a salary far more than what the original person was asking for. Example: I was asking for a 10% increase as I had two promotions with no salary compensation, and I was told no, so I moved internally, and they replaced me with someone making 30% more than I was...and this happens all the time. In my new group, a peer just left and they hired someone from the compeition making $20K more!

2. Mid-Management often times does not have a vision of where products need to go, and we end up chasing our competitors....like the two tablets HP has launched...one that was canceled and the other that is way to expensive and feature-less to compete with the iPad.

3. Under Mark Hurd all the R&D and push for innovation was cut, and jobs in the US were sent to Asia to save money and now many of our products are basically off-the-shelf from what our vendors have on their roadmaps. Yet execs now wonder why everyone buys Apple? And dont think the money saved from the loss of US jobs went anywhere but back to the Exec bonus plans or Mark Hurd's hush money to walk away.

4. In order to get deals in other countries such as China, Puerto Rico on taxes, real estate, etc, US jobs are always used as bartering tools. HP lays off Americans to higher in China, India or places like Puerto Rico in order to appease local governments and gain financial benefit on strategic deals.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Treat employees like humans and not a commodity, other fims like Google, Microsoft have larger overhead due to employee perks, but it also helps them keep and attract talent. Microsoft built a whole mall and shuttle system because they were losing to many employees to Google. Get smart, because your best employees are going to Dell and Cisco to get paid what they are worth....and you are spending more to replace them with folks from those exact companies.

2. Look more than a year out for market trends and innovation.

3. Put people in positions where their strengths are....too many times HP has people in a product development role, who has zero experience in development....or someone in a customer facing role who has zero experience and personality for such a position and both areas are examples where HP is lacking.

Pros

Good company overall to work for.

Cons

The size of the company can be an inhibitor to career advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

OK

Pros

Top management does not want telecommuting, but flexibility within the ranks.
Since you have to work all hours of the day, the work schedule is somewhat flexible.
Smart people to work with.

Cons

Teams spread across the world. Meeting at all hours of the day.
Too many hours.
No merit increases for years.

Advice to Senior Management

What sets HP apart? You need to focus on that! Palm Pre should not be the focus. Andriod and Apple already have this market captured.

Pros

The company culture was good, support of engineering training was good, but needed to better define career paths

Cons

Focused on profit and not people, moved to many jobs offshore for higher profit.

Pros

Opportunity to work from home.
Great name recognition.
Very bright people.
Great history of the company.

Cons

Can be stressful. Long hours. Global environment requires working extended hours. Threat of layoffs always looms. Talented people have been let go.

Pros

Large company provides many change / advancement opportunities
Generous compensation
Location in suburbs allows for great ability to live close to work for cheap
Great products that people recognize
Recognizable name on resume

Cons

Cast of thousands in their jobs for 8, 10, 15 years that are not going to change.
Tough to turn a big ship quickly

Advice to Senior Management

Firing Hurd was clumsy. Provide some tangible incentive to stay at HP instead of leaving.

Pros

relaxed environment sometimes, can work from home alot

Cons

low pay compare to other high tech company

Pros

There is no oversight in anything you do. I you want to go to a company and get paid to do what you want when you want, come on down

Cons

The management here is constantly trying to figure out ways to screw the employees. I have never seen so many people who can tell you one thing to your face while they are sticking a knife in your back.
The lack of oversight and direction creates poor quality since no one is ever held accountable for anything. The environment truly promotes those who do not do anything.
Your coworkers will continously work to harvest your ideas and present them as their own. This is how many people get away with doing nothing. The environment makes it very difficult to collaborate.
Don't look to your manager for any direction. It appears you will get dinged on your review if you seek direction from your manager. This is seen as "weakness".

Advice to Senior Management

Get off of your butts and actually start doing a little work. You are being paid to manage and provide direction! Stop sitting on your thumbs and do something.