Lockheed Martin Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

Good benefits, work schedule (9/80), flex time. Interesting defense work. Most fellow workers good to work with, communicate well. Managers do a decent job of sharing specific expertise across projects. Willing to offer overtime if needed. Willing to fund education for those that want to improve.

Cons

Low raises last 5 years, despite good reviews. No training funds for self-improvement during rare periods of idle time between projects. Management bids tended to be overly optimistic on new technology bids. Formal performance reviews are painful, employees asked for more informal feedback, got more frequent formal reviews instead. If you really want to be recognized, work on a project in trouble.

Advice to Senior Management

Tell the managers that a five minute chat every couple months where manager says, "You're doing this well, but you need to work on improving that." would do a lot more for employee that mid-year formal reviews.

Pros

Decent pay and good work, life balance. Interesting work on leading-edge technology. Generally good people to work with. Supportive management.

Cons

Too much bureaucracy, sometimes hard to get requests through the approval process. Feels like following the process is more important than getting the work done.

Advice to Senior Management

Need to allow employees to broaden themselves more through classes, conferences and other activities that are not directly billable to a program.

Pros

Worked with good people who cared about their work

Cons

Management will sell you down the river for their bonuses

Advice to Senior Management

Treat people like people not furniture

Pros

Work Life balance - huge you decide what it is.

Cons

Health benifits are lacking, no employee choice of what plan you want. LMCO has own health plan that is ok at best

Advice to Senior Management

Need to look at MS2 leadership, business cases are weak. Vendor and customer relationships are being strained.

Pros

Great pay
flexible work schedule
Opportunities for advancement

Cons

too many levels of management

Advice to Senior Management

Made a huge mistake to close the Eagan Plant.

Pros

Lots of upward mobility within the company. The work is interesting. If you want to relocate there are many branches across the country.

Cons

Make no mistake, to the company you are a person that does work that they can charge the government for and replacing you is not a big deal to them. I was in a skip-level lunch with an executive who said "Everyone is replaceable."

Advice to Senior Management

When closing a branch, the employees who want to relocate should be treated with at least as much respect as the employees leaving. It seemed as if management was bending over backwards to get the people who wanted to leave early out of the company and putting as many roadblocks as possible to relocate to the new branch during the closure of the Eagan facility. It was quite obvious they were trying to avoid as many severance and relocation payouts as possible to reduce the cost of the building closure.

Pros

Great benefits including a pension (although not for new employees).
Many locations across the US for opportunities.
High Tech field with some very interesting projects.

Cons

Management has focused more on the saving a few dollars than retaining some very talented people.
Promotions are promised but never actually given.
Too many people in higher level management positions that are not capable of leading a corporation such as Lockheed Martin.

Advice to Senior Management

None, it's too late!
But in case your interested;
It costs approximately $60-$100k to hire/train a new engineer, how does that compare to the $15k you'll save by eliminating a position?
Take some lessons from Space Systems, they are more organized and the employees actually respect their managers.

Pros

great benefits. very challenging technical work.

Cons

lack of diversity. older workers.

Advice to Senior Management

diversify. use more current technologies.

Pros

Fun work envrionment, easy to get along with colleagues. The cubicles are spacious and are grouped nicely together to converse with other employees. There wasn't a manager always looking over my shoulder, and the tasks weren't given, I had to come up with them on my own. This really inspired me to think outside of the box and recognize a need that wasn't yet identified. My manager gave me great kudos and now the report I created is used on a massive scale. It's nice to have your work complimented!

Cons

May work long hours, no OT for Direct employees, pleanty of OT for indirect!

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work of making the little man feel important!

Pros

Great benefits package (especially the 9/80 workweek at many locations, gives you every other Friday off). Company has a stable backlog of business in many different sectors (mostly defense), which hold up well even in a sagging economy. They have a very strong focus on ethics and doing the right thing. There is a great program for new college graduates, or if you've been working a long time, its also a great place if you just want to specialize in a certain discipline. Lots of emphasis on leadership development also, and lots of great training is encouraged in many different areas.

Cons

Since most work is on Government contracts, the work can be highly structured, and there are many procedures to follow.

Advice to Senior Management

I think they're on the right course - keep doing what they are doing.