LyondellBasell Reviews in Houston, TX Area

Pros

Good Salary
Plants work 9-80s
Good bonus %
Great benefits
Great systems (intranet site..etc)
I feel safe at work
Good culutre at the plants
"Humane" layoffs...

Cons

Minimum opportunities to move around groups (for example, environmental to business or production engineering to business..etc)
Lot's of people leaving...resources limited.
Bonus structure is leading to some problems
Total disconnect with Human Resources..I am not sure what they do.
Minimum training
Safety is tied to bonus

Advice to Senior Management

Employee retention is important right now...the morale is low. I think the message "we will be #1 in chemicals" is not enough.
Safety is important, but it seems that tying that to the bonus structure might backfire; people are scared to report injuries now.
Having employees that perform is important; but a bonus structure which rewards some with a multiplier of over 1 point means that others are getting a multiplier of less than 1 (so that the average is 1 for the group..) is causing bad competition between peers and lack of team work. Please change that.

Pros

The people and the experience of working for a big company. For engineers there is definitely problems to go after and solve.

Cons

Moral is at an all time low. The CEO continues to beat down on it's employees. Management doesn't focus on the right things.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a strategy to keep people in the company, right now it's like they could care less about people leaving.

Pros

Company has stabilized financially. There are decent advancement opportunities, although not as many as there once was.

Cons

The company's senior management tries to rule by fear. They do not reward high performers adequately. There is continuous pressure to perform at a high level, but there does not seem to be any incentive to do so. Company seems to use the buddy system for promotion of people, especially those who personally know the Manufacturing VP. The company is changing, trying to adopt a culture like a larger company, but it doesn't match that with larger companies' pay.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees with respect. Reward good performance with good pay and bonuses. Stop playing buddy politics by only promoting and hiring outsiders from ChevronPhillips or those who have worked at the Clinton site.

Pros

If you enjoy working in confined quarters where everyone can hear your thoughts, or in a sweat factory for uneducated and unskilled Managers, this is the place for you.

Cons

Departments are understaffed and employees over-worked. There is no work-life balance. Positions and promotions are still given via the Good ol' boy network. It is not what you know, but who you know.

Advice to Senior Management

LYB is the epitome of "Who Moved My Cheese" in reverse. Many individual contributors have done nothing more than lay back and get fat off this company as members of the Good ol' boy network.

Pros

Decent pay compared similar industry

Cons

Micro managed and very little HR concern for operations employees

Pros

The pay is good.
Lyondell is a great name to have on a Resume.
EHS commitment

Cons

Autocratic leadership. Gallogly likes to play the heavy and is always right, just ask him. Better yet, tell him that there may be other issues may need to be considered.

If you are a workaholic it is a great place to be. If you want to be respected and have any kind of work / life balance this is not the place. The philosophy is to grind you up and spit you out.

I never realized how bad it is at LyondellBasell until I went somewhere else.

Advice to Senior Management

There is no point. Your favorite dictator is more likely to listen to advice.

Pros

The people at the site are really good to work with. Unfortunately the general feeling is, "We're all getting shafted from above, so let's at least get through this together."

Cons

Salary, especially those lower in the tech ladder levels, is very poor. Rule by fear is generally how employees are managed.

Advice to Senior Management

Any advice here would fall on deaf ears. The only way this company is going to improve it's standing with employees is if the CEO leaves along with his entire staff.

Pros

For now there are some very good people, however many of the best performers are leaving fast.

Cons

Senior management is very disconnected with the employee. They will destroy any reputation Lyondell once had as a good place to work.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't go away mad, just go away. I hope you get whatever post bankruptcy compensation packages you were promised and leave.

Pros

Lyondellbasell is very committed to safety. There are many long term employees. Employees for the most part are very friendly.

Cons

When it was Lyondell, the company was very much committed to its employees. Now there is very little commitment to employees. Since the beginning of the bankruptcy, it has become a fear driven culture, with very little concern for the overall welfare of its people.

Advice to Senior Management

Learn to listen and value the employee's opinions.

Pros

The majority of middle management is trying hard to retain employees and backfill empty positions. There is a consensus of most employees that things will eventually get better.

Cons

There has been a loss of a lot of talent in the Houston area and this has created a strain on the remaining engineers. It appears that all compensation and benefit decisions by the current upper management have been negative for the majority of the employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize that there is an engineer retention and new talent attraction problem in the Houston area. This should be addressed with increased compensation and benefits.