Motiva Enterprises Reviews

Pros

The benefits are excellent at Motiva and it's a great place to work. I enjoyed my time working there and enjoyed a 9/80 schedule.

Cons

Some of the managers at Motiva were not skilled at providing a good mentoring especially when there was not a well established movement plan for the particular business or service that your job resided in.

Advice to Senior Management

Managers should look for and actively encourage those employees who show the potential to grow through work output and willingness to take on and excel at challenges placed before them.

Pros

The salary is really the only advantage. Since they are owned by Shell, they pay like a major oil company does. Bonuses are on the range of 10% of your base salary.

Cons

Port Arthur is a less than ideal place to live, much less bring a family to. Management is very reluctant to transfer you out of Port Arthur to a job with Shell after they promise to do so after a 3-4 year tenure. There is little emphasis on proactive or technical planning; the technology used and emphasized is 1980s vintage at best. Engineers are told to give "hipshot" explanations of unit problems rather than diagnosing them using data and mathematics.

Advice to Senior Management

The culture needs to change. Management needs to emphasize practical, logical decisions and not get bogged down with out-of-date work processes and tradition.

Pros

Motiva provides lots of opportunities to accomplish work at a self guided pace, without management constantly second guessing you, and micro managing you. Motiva also has satisfactory benefits.

Cons

Leadership at the gulf coast level does not have core values that are consistent with what Shell broadcasts at a global level.

Advice to Senior Management

Management allows the union to strong arm their way to get their demands. Also the company is too soft on their employees.

Pros

Excellent salary for the amount of education required. A person can obtain a GED or High School Diploma and still be considered for employment.

Cons

The relationship between management and workers is poor. The overall morale is poor. Management has just imposed rules that make it difficult for workers to have flexibility in their shift. For example, at one time, operators were allowed to swap shifts with each other. Management has placed a rule restricting swaps over weekends. This takes needed flexibility away from others.

Advice to Senior Management

Please realize that this is a worldwide corporation. It is a business. The amount of pettiness and spite that I have seen by some members of management and human resources is appauling.
People simply want to make a living. The overall morale and atmosphere at Motiva is suffocating.
If industry picks up, and competitiveness in salary becomes an issue, my overall feelings is that Motiva will loose a lot of talented individuals.

Pros

Salary and compensation is always high and more than competitive. Also, yearly bonuses are great motivation to work hard. Great management that understands issues within employees and flexible schedules.

Cons

Big companies are hard to move high within, so it is hard for a young employee to get up very high in management. You should get used to the fact taht you might have to switch jobs on a fairly consistent basis. While this is exciting to some, it does create some uncertainty in terms of success.

Advice to Senior Management

Make things slightly more transparent. With company bonuses being based on performance, it should be more transparent how these things are calculated.