Norfolk Southern Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern as an intern for less than a year

Pros – constant developing company, stable and safe.

Cons – little payment and stressful work. managment is not good

Advice to Senior Management – needless to say something

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than a year

Pros – *On the management side they have wonderful medical benefits and great salary for those starting out.
*Great retirement, if you can make it that far!!

Cons – * You work for the railroad and they are a 24hr operations.

* The pay verses the hours does not work out well. Instead of dollars per hour it turns out to be pennies per hour

*There are no sick days, no personal days, no set schedule in terminal's or line of road, no personal life allowed.

*You are at their beck and call. 24hrs a day, it doesn't matter if you are at a ball game with your son or recital with your daughter your butt is theirs and you better not have your phone turned off.

*If you are married stay away from this company because their is good possibility you want be married in a few short years.

*If you are prior Military they take you for granted and use and abuse you because they think you will adapt to their unbalanced way of life and culture. I'm sorry but the military was more balanced in their way of life and culture than Norfolk Southern. The military took more time to care about the well being of you andvyour family.

* The military supported your time with family, Norfolk Southern seems to see your family as a hindrance to their operations.

Advice to Senior Management – Norfolk Southern is trying to change their way of life and it is appreciated because their needs to be major reform in the way of life. However, your reform isn't happen fast enough. I'm not willing to sacrifice my family as many have done in the past to make a buck. I'll go work at McDonald's making minimum wage if it means being able to spend more time with my family and not answering a phone at all hours of the night. If i could give one piece of advice to the upper level management I would have to say..."focus on your front line supervisors (B3-B4) make their lives better!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern

Pros – the pay and benefits that u get and the job security that u get ..Also, the u get hat for a job well done..

Cons – Lower to middle management.. the treatment of employees. The fear they put into you keeping your job.. they fire people for crappy reasons. they dont care about people families or employees. worst place i can work at but i need a job to feed my family

Advice to Senior Management – Wake up you are losing touch with your employees... you listen to your middle managers who are yes men and only say what u want to hear so they get their bonuses

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern

Pros – Good wages, not much else good the co-workers were in the same boat, a company that does not care about the employees

Cons – poor management. Poor disiplinary policies. a company that does not care about the employees. this is a company that only cares about the bottom line. you get hurt, you are in a war to get back to work.

Advice to Senior Management – Start caring about the employees, they are your life blood. they are not just a human resource.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern as a contractor for more than 7 years

Pros – Fortune 500 company with reasonable budgets for capital investments. Relatively stable company which is not as affected by economic downturns.

Cons – There is a toxic culture of dishonesty, hypocrisy, sketchy agreements, lack of accountability and negative politics throughout the IT Leadership. Promotions are tenure-based -- not merit based. Performers are punished rather than rewarded.

This environment attracts under-performers looking for an easy pension. Management is unwilling/unable to compensate top level talent with competitive salary ranges. Skilled IT-resources move on to better organizations while under-performers stay until retirement resulting in a perpetual "brain drain".

As an organization, there is no desire to be anywhere but the middle or rear of the "pack" in regards to IT capabilities. Until a major cultural change occurs, this company's IT Department will always be an industry-lagger rather than industry-leader.

Advice to Senior Management – Change the culture. (start with Forbes article: "The Key to Changing Organizational Culture")

Attract, reward and retain top-talent. (start with Dice article: "30 Ways to Attract or Repel the Very Best Employees in Tech")

The rest will happen naturally...

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Health Insurance was good for the first few years when we had no co pay, then we started paying 300+ a month for it. Descent pay check ,

Cons – Worked on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week, all weekends and holiday's, with no extra pay for working holiday. No time at all for family, they called you back to work after 10 hours rest, and you spent from 36 to 40 hours gone at a time. 120+ days a year in a hotel room. No where near enough pay for every thing you sacrifice. They always find a way to beat you out of your bonus's and you never got a pat on the back for working your hind end off. Always hiding in the bushes trying to catch you breaking a rule. Management at the local level was terrible. Twelve years of this and I called it quits!

Advice to Senior Management – Give a fellow a Pat on the back once in a while, all we ever get is the negative. The only time you see a Supervisor was to tell you how you needed to do more and do better. Hire people in management that have a clue, the college grads you hire right out of college know nothing about the railroad, and they are suppose to be able to help you and 99% of the time I had forgotten more than they even knew about railroading!!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Decent pay, Job is very simple overall

Cons – On Call 24/7 365, Common sense not prevalent in management circles

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Pay is relatively well.
Mobility due to large number of employees retiring.
Unlimited potential if you're willing to set aside your private life and dignity.

Cons – You will work 24hrs/day with no sick, personal, or other time off.
Vacation policy is terrible, considering you work 24/7. Operations employees get the same amount of off time as staff employees who work 40hr work weeks.
Management has old school mentality that doesn't value employees.
Education is worthless. NS relies on a large number of uneducated people who "can't" readily find comparable salaries.
Relocations to unfavorable locations.

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of Division Superintendents that are stifling innovation and running away educated supervisors who are not willing to put up with the abusive culture.
Culture change is nice, but you will never get buy in from rank and file until the bad actors are gone. People will not suddenly start trusting officers with a history of unsavory conduct.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Stable industry. Didn't worry about losing job during recession.

Cons – CEO stated that "legacy" employees get consideration - meaning, if your daddy works for the company you will get promoted. Good luck if you don't have a relative pulling strings for you.

Does not value quality education, would prefer to promote people that could not get paid the same at other companies due to lack of higher education.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't allow relatives of management to work for the company

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Fast paced, rewarding in some cases, and a decent amount of training opportunities. There are decent salaries if you are in the right "track". There is opportunity for advancement.

Cons – Long hours, very little compensation for the amount of time worked, and recognition isn't structured. In other words, hard work doesn't necessarily get rewarded as quickly as it should. The company still operates under the "who you know" more than it should.

Advice to Senior Management – Improve at identifying talent. It should be what you know and what you do, not who you know. Provide more feedback for those who apply for jobs and are turned down.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend