Pros

Great people to work with in a well-managed company. Organizational commitment to product and financial success.

Cons

Succession planning and promotions seem to be based as much on sponsorship or being "in the club" as on an objective search and evaluation of candidates.

Can be challenging to manage the relationship with both customers and suppliers.

Advice to Senior Management

NA

Pros

The time off given for holidays and sick days is great. There is a lot of opportunity for growth and HR has many programs in place to assist employees to achieve higher levels of employment and more job skills.

Cons

There is very little employee recognition. We had to pay for our own employee recognition luncheon and our own Christmas lunch. There is no employee appreciation day or week.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize your employees!! They are the ones who got you to where you are at,

Pros

This company pushes for success (i.e. financial growth and profit), and is therefore performing very well in the "down economy." Sets high goals.

Cons

I put in 50 to 60 hour weeks perhaps 75% to 80% of the time, year-round. This is common-place and is expected for Project Development Engineers in Building Efficiency.

This company sets extremely high goals for increased sales, shortens the time-frame for development of each project (from 10 weeks, to 8 weeks, to 5 weeks in some cases). Shorter development time-lines mean that we can deliver more projects to customers over the course of a year, which allows us to book more jobs, and increase sales and profit. However, all things being equal, compressed timelines also mean frantic employees, as we try to complete the same amount of work in half the time that we used to.

This company has not figured out how to quench it's thirst for the flood of projects that have been spurred by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds, while preserving the sanity of it's employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Consider using paid time off to compensate employees for hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. When driving to grow the business and increase profit, hire more employees to share the increased workload.

Pros

The benefits are top notch. My location offered a very good Work/Life Balance. Challenging environment with an expectation to grow professionally.

Cons

My only downsides have to do with middle management. Lack of communication, recognition of good work, and even respect. I believe this is mainly at the location that I worked.

Advice to Senior Management

Give deserved recognition to employees who perform well. Always respect your coworkers and subordinates. Be honest with people all the time.

Pros

you have freedom to roam about and make decisions and problem solve on your own.

Cons

constantly going and rarely have time to completely finish one task without having to move to another. somethings always wrong and sometimes it would be nice to see things working how they are suppose to be!

Advice to Senior Management

hold people accoutable for their mistakes instead of blaming a manager for something he does not physically do

Pros

Green company! brilliant people, good for growth and development - but you need to let management know that you want to grow and develop and what you are interested in. If you are open with them, most managers will help good employees stay motivated and happy.

Cons

Large company, can be difficult to navigate. Headquarters is in MKE where it is COLD! Can be long hours if working on important projects.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it up! 125 years in the busines is great, and I look forward to growing with the company for years to come.

Pros

Well respected company in the right industry (energy efficiency) at the right time, with some excellent product and service capabilities, and some great people in the field.

Cons

I was working for York International when Johnson Controls purchased the company. York was a flat organization which enabled it to make decisions or provide answers quickly. JCI has so many layers of management that it once took three weeks to get a conference call scheduled with three levels of management to discuss an issue, and another week for a decision. At York, I was able to get an answer for a more complex issue in three days. When you are dealing with major customers that are used to getting a quick response, 3-4 weeks doesn't cut it.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide account managers for national or strategic accounts with the authority and accountability to make decisions that can impact the customer relationship and experience. At the very least, give them direct access to the management level with the authority to make a decision about an issue.

Pros

JCI has excellent benefits and is a player in thier market. Local branch had very talented people in many key roles.

Cons

Direct management in many cases was from another part of the country all together. Very little contct and many of the middle managers were very unprofessional and had little to no experience in the arena they were managing.

Advice to Senior Management

Middle management needs to have background in the verticle they are working from either JCI or a competitor. This would enable them to understand the business better.

Pros

JCI has very strong manufacturing processes and quality systems in place on a global scale. It is a great place to learn how establish a Fortune 100 company with processes and procedures in place so that anyone can come in and do the job. Great training ground for your career to move on to other companies and excel.

Cons

The pay is very low and your life is consumed by the job. There is really no balance. There is a reason that JCI recruits college grads very heavily to handle the automotive scheduling jobs. They need the young energy and willingness for lower pay.

Advice to Senior Management

As an employee, I left for better pay. But as a stockholder and from a business perspective, the company is run well. It is a great place to learn great fundamentals at the beginning of one's career and then move on to bigger and better things at other companies.

Pros

Fair compensation but not top level

Cons

Cultural and diversity issues drive business decisions. Assurances from management not always honored. For a company that very publicly displays its diversity and ethics it lacks corporate integrity when decisions are made when compared to their public image.

Advice to Senior Management

Honor your agreements. If allowing lower level senior and mid-level managers to make decisions then the executive officers should have the integrity to follow and abide by these decisions. Be careful that your diversity culture does not end up running the company. If asked, I can honestly say that I would not recommend to a friend that a job with JCI would be a good career move. This is hard for me to say because I had a strong belief that JCI was a company worth staying at. A company that was worth the investment. I was wrong in that assessment.