Motorola Reviews in Chicago, IL Area

Pros

Good techincal group, good learning environment.

Cons

Disorganized company. Treat employees better.

Advice to Senior Management

Get organized.

Pros

Benefits package was good, onsite gym, onsite day care facility, on site cafeteria (poor food though). Fairly good central location.

Cons

Constant fear of being laid off.
Lack of communication from Senior Management to employees.
Management making decisions to lay people off yet still flying their corporate jets and spending frivolously on their own personal enjoyment.
Dull monotonous environment lacking in inspiration

Advice to Senior Management

It would be good for the senior managers to BE SEEN to be making some sacrifices themselves personally. It still seems like they enjoy the good life while laying off people and cutting back benefits etc.

Pros

Steady paycheck. Reasonable benefits, including a credit union, 401k match, company stock purchase plan, medical, dental, vision. Decent front line employees.

Cons

Poor morale, poor pay and benefits. No training. No support from IT or management. Ruling by fear and innuendo. If you prove yourself as a capable employee, you will be given more work and more responsibility without more pay. Management routinely will make public any kind of perceived shortcomings they see in employees. If any equipment breaks down, good luck getting it repaired or replaced. On separate occasions, a microwave oven and a refrigerator broke down. Management tried collecting money from the employees to replace both the microwave and the refrigerator. There is no consistent time-off policy, even within the workgroup. Some days, you just have to send an email to get the time approved. If you try leaving in the middle of your shift, even if you have an emergency, even if you have time off available, your manager will demand your badge.
No consistent measurement of employee performance. Most employee performance is based on subjective buzzwords like "flexibility" and "attitude." Translation: do what management wants whenever they want you to. Don't question the status quo, even if the status quo is terrible. Sit down, shut up, and be grateful to even have a job in a terrible economy.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut the fat. There are so many mid-level managers whose most lasting contributions are cleaning out the break room refrigerator or posting signs to clean the break room.

Pros

-Pay'salright, benefits good, that's where it ends

Cons

Loads of incompetent people that get promoted. poor feedback. backstabbers and highly political environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of all the crap people you have and promote the good ones. Stronger emphasis on results. Show appreciation for hard working and talented people. End the politics.

Pros

Always working with leading edge technology.
Compensation is a little above average.

Cons

Constant state of layoffs, even significantly before the recession. Even when not downsizing they maintain a revolving door, ranking employees, flushing the bottom, bring in new, repeat.

Advice to Senior Management

Constant change in priorities is wastefull both economically and to employee moral.

Pros

* very sharp people to work with
* flexible work environment
* very interesting work up until 2007 or so

Cons

* extremely top heavy organization
* senior management is cluless about how to run a business; too many examples here- look no further than its lost leadership in an industry that it created-
* accomplishments not recognized

Advice to Senior Management

* talk from time to time to real engineers and find out what's going on instead of relying on yes men that you usually surround yourself with
* embrace change, not fight it; learn to recognize game-changing events/technology

Pros

Opportunities for professional improvement - one of the few employers who still provide full tuition reimbursement.
Strong technology DNA
Exception talent at various levels

Cons

Senior Executive churn
Inept middle management
Reactive decision making at the highest levels
Work-life balance slowly but steadily deteriorating
Uncompetitive salary and benefits
Too many 'alpha males' at all levels who put self above company and general good
Rampant empire building

Advice to Senior Management

Clean house - get rid of some incompetency at middle levels
Pick a strategy, any strategy

Pros

Some really great smart people. .

Cons

Lots of average peeps who add little value but lots of snake pitesque politics

Advice to Senior Management

Invest in the business

Pros

Great engineering company. Used to work on a few cool products, but these days there is not a whole lot going on

Cons

There are not a whole lot of products that are being churned out . The google deal is great but the only issue is lack of cohesive product strategy

Advice to Senior Management

Great engineering company. Used to work on a few cool products, but these days there is not a whole lot going on

Pros

Development in some of the latest technologies

Cons

10 teams would be working on the same project. More time spent on determining which team has the best technology rather than choosing a solution and moving forward with it.