International Paper Reviews

Pros

It was a challenging place to work. I enjoyed the team that I worked with. The job was rewarding and the incentives were great

Cons

There was a tendency to get bogged down in extra reports that took away from quality time in the field.

Advice to Senior Management

THat they should give their field employees more incentives and opportunity to make decisions out in the field that they can take ownership of.

Pros

Good pay
Good benefits
Work-life balance
Hard-working individuals

Cons

No professional development
Political
Not all managers are qualified to manage/lead others

Advice to Senior Management

Promote employees based on qualifications

Pros

Good benefits, good diversity, career advancement opportunities are good if you are competent and take the extra effort to do a good job.

Cons

Can get passed over if you don't ask for what you deserve. Don't always assume that good work will be noticed.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to make the company leaner, there are too many positions that do not add any value and in many cases create more bottlenecks.

Pros

Nice people, stressful work environment, management was incompetent

Cons

Very stressful, production employees treated poorly

Pros

Competent technology and manufacturing teams
Some strong leaders
Global operations

Cons

Too slow to change processes
Some departments are underperforming and need shake up
People need more cross functional training
Too many layers and positions

Advice to Senior Management

Globalize more the talent pool and rotate people through functions and locations
Too much is only US focused

Pros

Through the recent recession, employees were still given raises and cost of living wage increases. The company has recently refocused attention on core highly profitable long term businesses - making boxes for example and has become a world leader in this market and others.
The company has been around for a long time (over 100 years) and is likely to be around for a lot longer. If you are interested in a large multinational with slow and steady growth, this is it.

Mr. Faraci is in touch with his Memphis employees and is leading the company in the right direction. He took a very bold step in raising cash and taking on substantial debt to purchase a division from Weyerhaeuser but I believe that it was the right decision for the company.

Cons

This is low profit margin manufacturing large multinational company.
Therefore there are many layers of management, too many useless and duplicate reports to do and other seemingless foolish administrative tasks that are not apparently useful to those working in the trenches.
For similar reasons the company wants to justify every project and watches it's money very closely.
Changes have to regarded
Mid level managers may be under utilized and therefore have time to micromanage. Some employees, due to the size of the company, and a somewhat lax management attitude in some areas, feel that they can get away with not working. They may in the short term but International Paper will terminate them eventually (may take years) .
Corporate at time's seems to kowtow to businesses units and manufacturing facilities, taking the attitude that if they say they have to have then they must be .
Too many "diverse" employee's in positions that they are unqualified and unsuited for.
In some areas I have witness'ed a cliques led by managers lead to incometence being ignored.
Many employees know "the system " is broken and dont try to attempt to fix it any more and instead just allow it continue by lying about others performance or by finding another way to accomplish a task.
Thus failures are glossed over and allowed to continue.

The company continues to pay lip service to environmental causes and in some cases is hypocritical.
For example the company will say one thing, and do another : it has an impressive media campaign that printing on paper is better than emailing yet internally has diverted all paper notices to email versions.
Large office buildings within Memphis, could and should have been made green decades ago (solar panels) , an investment that would have paid for itself already.
Company does not internally recycle cans, glass or plastic . Nor does it lead such recycling programs within the community.
The company has reduced it's north american land holdings, avoiding the responsibility of land stewardship while at the same time promoting such stewardship.

The company continues to off shore as much work as possible. The US staff continue to drive the work but understand less and less as they have a hands off attitude and become more and more project managers. This results in systems which no one understands 2 years after building, and which often do not work.

Corporate divisions such as Human Resources and IT are understaffed and have insufficient resources, leading to long lag times or no response.

Advice to Senior Management

Eliminate the global employee survey. My team will spend hours attempting to fix a problem that we cant fix due to a poor management decision made 10 years ago. problem that we are unable other managers have ignored for years.My team is seriously considering lying on the next survey in the hope that they dont have to perform any more useless remedial actions that wont change the result of the poor management decision made 10 years ago. For this survey International Paper paid millions of dollars in the time from employees.

A real incentive to employee productivity improvements would be a share of the savings in cash.

Remove bonus' for managers. Too often we see useless objective completed merely to make managers look good for their end of year reports so that they can make their bonus'. These false objectives gloss over or ignore real work that should be accomplished that could save the company substantial sums.

Pros

Good benefits: Health, dental, EAP. Salaries are higher than the national average. I liked that fact that IP does give back to the community.

Cons

Little sharing of information by management which results in a lack of clear direction as to what is expected. Limited resources to meet goals assigned.

Advice to Senior Management

Directors and others in managementment positions need to be more open with employees on where the company is going strategically. This will allow the employees to work toward helping the company meet the goals. Develop clear job descriptions. Most important, communicate, communicate, communicate.

Pros

Great Benefits
Great Pay
Nice peopele to work with

Cons

Work-Life Balance
Advancement and Communication needs improvement

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

The salary and benefit packages are competitive within their respective markets. As a leader in the pulp and paper market there are many operations throughout the US therefore affording opportunities for growth and advancement. Diversity within the company's senior leadership team all the way down to the production floor provides a culture that reflects the communities and customers they service.

Cons

Information doesn't flow as smoothly as it should. Communication can be slow to filter down to those who carry out the orders. Changes in processes or procedures are not presented effectively at times. Often those responsible for implementing these changes arent sufficiently informed/trained on the new process and therefore unable to effectively train the employees who are affected by the change.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. Engage your workforce by refocusing on the team environment where every employee is viewed as essential rather than expendable.

Pros

Salary is good compared to similar companies in the area. Benefits appear comparable.

Cons

Little to no opportunities to grow professionally.