Panasonic Reviews

Pros

Most of the employees were good to work with. Also, management was reasonable in accommadating work/life balance. Good severence policy.

Cons

Can be difficult, depending on the particular group you work for. Most products are keyed to the Japan market, so sometimes it can be difficult when working in the US.

Advice to Senior Management

A top down approach to a changing world market needs to be implemented. For example, managers responsible for foreign markets need to be held accountable for their P&L

Pros

Well known brand and health benefits are good in comparison to many other firms. Nice cafe and for middle to senior management a company Audi to drive.

Cons

The company is driven by HQ in Japan and expats that are rotated in from Japan for three to five year assignments. Many of the management that did the heavy lifting to build the brand either left for greener pastures where they could grow or were eliminated. If you want to spread your wings and work in an open-minded environment this is not the place. Lots of puppets.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect the wisdom of the many and focus on knowledge that exists within your employees. It may be to late

Pros

The work scope are specified under a mentor for certain duration. The job rotation can help to gain experience in different sectors.

Cons

In view of specified work done, there is no opportunity to learn other task, therefore the career is limited in the short duration

Advice to Senior Management

The overall company was awesome. very interesting place to work with and the management staff and leader are friendly in term of sharing and advise.

Pros

Flex time, virtual offices, good benefits and smart people.

Cons

Still winging it old style...need to embrace change.

Advice to Senior Management

Give praise to the people that actually do the work...not just the managers that sometimes haven't a clue.

Pros

The Medical and Dental Benefits were good.

Cons

The management style needs to be improveed. Poor Management

Advice to Senior Management

Management should be more honest with their employees.

Pros

Good benefits, sick leave, vacations and many sales and upper management positions still receive company cars.

Cons

STRESS and lack of personal life-
 The balance of personal life vs. work life is extremely blurry now that many sales, marketing, support and even admin positions, although exempt positions, frequently work nights and weekends especially if traveling is part of your position. The work load can be intense due to shortage of head count and staffing from constant corporate cost cuttiing and what seems to be perpetual reorganization within the company.

Achieving sales budgets-
In almost all sales and product areas of the company achieving your monthly sales budget is PARAMOUNT to management and your bonus/income can suffer if you miss, In fact just achieving 100% is NOT good enough; you have to go OVER your budget to make any real bonus every quarter. And depending on the product category you handle, your budget can be very arbitrary (high)and not realistic to Panasonic's market share (or total market size) thus making it virtually impossible to "get the carrot". Miss budget too often and you could "find your way to the door"

Advice to Senior Management

Be more realistic with sales quotas and hire more staffing instead of forcing employees to assume additional responsibilities (with no additional compensation) when someone leaves. This attitude "you're lucky to be working" which so many companies seem to have these days does NOTHING to endear employee loyalty.

Note: Joe Taylor may be the CEO of Panasonic North America and I think he IS doing a decent job but only to the extent his Japanese puppeteers (management) back in Japan allow him. Remember, Panasonic is first a Japanese company and Joe Taylor is their (well paid) "politically correct" figure head in the United States to make the company appear more "American" to the (buying) public.

Pros

a fortune 500 competitive company

Cons

relaxing,but competitive at the same time.

Advice to Senior Management

Pls be more casual

Pros

The salary and benefits package are better than most. There is an attempt to balance work and family life. There is generous allotment of personal time off (PTO). Some of the area's work in the latest technology.

Cons

If your looking for potential, if your looking for career growth and the ability to advance, look elsewhere. Absolutely no training. No advancement and stale leadership. Some nice talking points but they fail miserably at implementation. I could not recommend this company to anyone.

Advice to Senior Management

Give the staff some recognition and the ability to advance. A little training would be a nice thing also. As it exists today, there is little to no chance for learning, advancement or the ability to grow. The place has been gutted since 2007.

Pros

The best opportunities for advancement. Great pay, Excellent Company to work for, Amazing benefits, uncomparable compensation it's like no other company out there.

Cons

They moved most of their jobs to Mexico and China. This was their only downfall, layed off lots of U.S. workers.

Advice to Senior Management

Come back to the U.S. Please! I'm sure that there is some kind of deal that Corporate can make with the U.S. in order to bring these jobs back to America.

Pros

Nice campus and cafeteria and credit union on site.
There are many good people still left behind.
Excellent though skyrocketing benefits costing more each year.
This was once a great place to work that everyone looked forward to coming to on Mondays!
Was good ability to move within the company.

Cons

System changes last few years were total chaos and not improve things rather it made work more cumbersome and led to much manual work and stress and pressure and errors
Layoffs caused good people to leave and bad ones to be retained-many good employees took packages to flee leaving behind who knows what.
Too many dinosaurs and non performing managers escaped many of the cuts.
Management afraid of Japanese counterparts and expats working in NJ for set amount of years.
Bad employee morale due to constant system and policy changes.
Many perks employees once enjoyed have been taken away and making it more impersonal place to work.
Japanese expats work to 10PM and later and frown on those who do not do same-though its largely because the later hours are when they contact their homeland due to time zone difference.
Factory does not support sales/operations and is constant battle.
Budget process is unyielding from direction of Japan HQ and management takes a "stay the course" attitude that runs right into failure of goals and targets because of unrealistic original budgets.
Then they get blamed.
Japanese think Americans are lazy and thats most likely because many feel the need for a balanced work life and refuse to stay all night.

Advice to Senior Management

American management open your mouths.
Japanese LISTEN and RESPECT!
Start looking at your employees with HR and begin to get rid of the bad ones that seem to continue to escape and that especially includes Management that is a pure buddy system and leaves employees scratching their heads saying "how the heck did that guy get that job"?
HR for the most part worthless in this company and afraid to do anything.