Hitachi Global Storage Reviews

Pros

Career Growth, Executive Leadership, STrong Pipeline of products

Cons

Its is currently undergoing acquisition

Pros

flexibility to work from anywhere

Cons

1. no career growth
2. work appreciation is not so good, good for those looking for stagnancy
3. not much development path for those supporting in asia, all centralized in US
4. some managers are acting they are the company owner and they can do whatever they want and not for the subordinate

Advice to Senior Management

too late, company is being sold...nothing can be done

Pros

Friendly place to work, with low levels of bad politics. The environment retains much of the IBM culture where employees can openly debate options with management rather than just take direction. After long, rough time, HGST turned around and has delivered good results in recession, and shared good bonuses with employees. Good amount of vacation for new hires.

Cons

Too many managers and too many layers of management. Many new managers brought in from competitors are trying to change the culture along more authoritarian lines. The company is also in the process of a merger/buyout that promises to further that trend.
The industry is consolidating and new technology is eating into the storage market. How many more years does HDD technology have, maybe 10?
Raises are few and far between at the same time benefits have been cut back. About the only way for existing employees to get a good raise is to find another job and give notice. Amazingly there are a lot of people that have worked 20+ years there.
The Great Oaks campus is old, poorly maintained and organized.
Cumbersome documentation process bogs people down in red tape for making improvements. Too many people in the sign-off process don't want to take risks.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut management levels and red tape. As soon as the economy turns around, a lot of the younger people are going to bolt for better pay and advancement- get a plan together before then. Invest more in improving the capabilities of the staff.

Pros

When you are a key player, management gives an open hand on projects

Cons

Not much communication from upper management regarding company and no room for promotions.

Advice to Senior Management

Need more feedback especially after WD intent to takeover.

Pros

Some of the employees are nice and pro-active. Some of the employees go out of their way to try to make a better team environment. Managers have parties or events for employees that are fun.

Cons

Management would benefit with creating a better work environment if they had more positive interaction with their direct subordinates. Management tends to only point out the negative aspects of job performances based on how many "units" an employee has "moved" in and out of a station or area. Quantity over quality. They do not know what their subordinates actually do as far as training, troubleshooting and dealing with "on-the-side" engineering work, for which they get no credit during at review time.

Advice to Senior Management

Audit your quality team and middle management. There is not a real "safety program" and the management and quality team let anyone enter the cleanroom with or without a badge even though they discourage it. People "piggy-back" to get in the building and get into the cleanroom every day, several times a day. This means they do not have access to the building and/or cleanroom and they wait for someone else to open the door and walk in.

Pros

Local, Salary, Previous Management was very receptive and god toemployees

Cons

No consideration for employees. HR is a misnomer

Advice to Senior Management

Need action; not promises

Pros

Executive team is very knowledgeable
Steve is a great leader
Great benefits
Lots of change for the good (prior to WD deal)
Warm and caring global employees
Hard working and smart people who care about what they are doing

Cons

Everyone was on board to go public, working long long hours, focused and committed, then instead of a IPO which would be GREAT for the employees, were are being acquired and losing our jobs. Feels like a slap in the face. Very disappointed in the executive team. I really believed in the direction and feel like we were thrown under the bus.

Advice to Senior Management

Offer retention bonus for employees to remain until the WD blood bath is over . .Just really disappointed in the executive management for not going through with the IPO after we were so dedicated and achieved some incredible turnaround results. I approve of Steve prior to the WD deal

Pros

Pool of skilled talent
Dedication to customer / product quality / performance

Cons

Company direction all over the map

Advice to Senior Management

Good luck with WD merger.

Pros

Friendly managers and co-workers. Salary is decent. Work time is flexible.

Cons

Poorly managed HR department. Extremely difficult to reach them.
No hope of career advancement
Company is disappearing, in the acquisition process by Western Digital.
Job security is poor.

Pros

Hitachi GST produces a very complex product and does it well. People are very dedicated to the product and the company. Technical innovation is seen as a good thing.
The company is profitable and well run from an operational point of view.

Cons

The "lip service" given to innovative development by the CXO level is laughable. Innovation is limited to producing "cheaper, bigger" disks. The investment in consumer products or "non-traditional products" is a joke compared to what is spent on the smallest innovation in other areas.

Advice to Senior Management

Innovate outside of the "bigger, cheaper & faster" disk mindset. Develop *complete* solutions to customers problems rather than being a cheap component for others to build high value consumer products and systems.