PETROBRAS Reviews

Pros

(i) Most admired company in Brazil; (ii) An excellent policy of employee trainning; (iii) lot of opportunities to grow; (iv) Many crucial unresolved technical problems to address.

Cons

(i) Extremely large company; (ii) because of that, decisions are taken too slowly sometimes; (iii) as a public company, sometimes what is the best for company it's not what is implemented.

Advice to Senior Management

I think the one of the most important issue in Petrobras is its employee allocating process. You have the right people and a lot of opportunities. Try putting the right people on the right job and you will have extraordinary result.

Pros

We have a great source of knowledge here, very good people and colleagues to tutorials. No doubt a good place for those who want to learn.

Petrobras has large oil reserves to explore and new opportunities should arise with the growth of the company, but she only hires Brazilian or naturalized Brazilians by public examinations.
Petrobras also hires other companies that perform services for it. These companies pay better than Petrobras itself and the benefits are almost the same. These companies hire foreigners and in these companies you have a lot of mobility.

Cons

Unfortunately the ability of the leaders still leaves much to be desired. If you have the good fortune they sent you to a department with a good leader, congratulations, if not, there are rare the cases of someone getting an internal transfer. It´s common the cases of people asking for dismissal due to poor management and lack of internal mobility. The company has over 50,000 employees with almost no mobility, even if the person is necessary at another position. It will all depend on your boss, and his boss, and his boss, and his boss.

Despite the great effort of the company to develop leadership skills, a gap of 10 years without hiring, and with great stability of the employees who were already in the company at 1990´s created a scenario that should improve the management capacity only in 5 or 10 years.

Advice to Senior Management

For sure it be difficult to manage a public company so that it has the appearance of a private company. I think it´s very difficult to run the company with so many political influences.
Wages are lower than those companies that are in the market created by itself (Petrobras).

Pros

Internationally recognized, Great in the deep offshore operations

Cons

Low package as a local staff outside Brazil, Fewer operations outside Brazil

Advice to Senior Management

None

Pros

Better salary than other companies in the sector. Young staff with a very good attitude in HR department

Cons

Limited access to training and equipment to perform your job. Managers unaware of cultural differences and occasionally with aggressive management style. Too many political issues in the background coming from state owned company and national press, that at the end, forced the company to quit the country

Advice to Senior Management

Too late to give some advice now (the company has just left the country)

Pros

Excellent salary, benefits and profit share program.

Cons

Terible career recognition program, no incentive for continuing education.

Pros

good salary, invest on training

Cons

No recognition, unmotivating, it doesn't seems you grow as a proffessional

Advice to Senior Management

most people I know doesn't feel realised on working at Petrobras, motivation is something we need. I know so many cases of depressed people here. And it seems that managers are only concerned with little things, but not on the great ones

Pros

Largest company in Brazil, technologically advanced, technically competent, pension and health plan benefitis

Cons

Headquarters in Rio (nightmare city to live in), poor quality management, too much political influence

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees

Pros

Good job, stability, good salary

Cons

So much work, we have to think hard all the time.

Advice to Senior Management

Help employees balance work and time to live

Pros

Technological competence, company infra-structure and work visibility.

Cons

Political interference in the company objectives.

Advice to Senior Management

Go ahead with the strategical plans