Rain Bird Reviews

Pros

Tucson is a great place to live, but unfortunately not many alternative, reasonably well-paying jobs (Once you get here and fall in love with the community, it's tough to stay due to lack of professional opportunities...)

Competent, albeit generally scared co-workers who see that everyone is in the same dire straits at the prison-like Rain Bird facility, and thus always looking for a job "on the outside"

Air conditioned building (important in 100+ degree heat!) and free, but uncovered parking.

Cons

Incredibly twisted, demented and unhealthy culture - Senior Management is not only disinterested in having a decent quality of life for themselves and their own families, but they feel compelled to make their employees equally (or more) miserable - such a sad, sad environment...

Although the >40% annual turnover is tough to believe, it aligns well with corporate philosophy of squeezing as much as possible out of new employees and then simply kicking them to the curb once they're broken down and defeated, and often after they have left behind fairly decent situations in other parts of the country.

Rampant paranoia is evident from the very top and throughout SBU leadership - I've never seen a place that not only hates its channel partners (i.e., distributors) but has obvious disgust for its employees, the very people who are simply trying to help the company succeed, or at least survive.

Advice to Senior Management

Regrettably there is nothing that can be said that would break through - the paranoid, power freaks in control are just not able to listen to reason. Only the inevitable implosion of the company and subsequent sale of assets by a bankruptcy court will enable the brand to last much more than 10 more years...

Pros

Innovation and creativity is high appreciated

Cons

ineffective and outdated quality management system

Pros

They pay well, Tucson is a very nice place to live especially if you have a family. Nothing else is good about this company.

Cons

This company works harder at figuring reasons to not get things done. There are more meetings about having meeting than any place I have ever been. There is a written policy to act quickly - "The 24 hour rule!" What a joke! Try to do something here on your own and see how fast you get fired. The culture is horrible, the equipment is 20 years old, the computer monitors are 17" CRTs! Senior management is too old and out of touch with the rest of the business world. Anyone who has been at the company for more than a few years is a complete Yes Man Drone. Stay away if you can at all costs.

Advice to Senior Management

Sell the company and let real leadership do the job.

Pros

Good pay and benefits, opportunity for advancement

Cons

Lack of information necessary to make good decisions

Advice to Senior Management

Share more information, empower employees

Pros

Rain Bird has good name brand recognition and quality products.
it is nice to work for an industry leader.
They pay well.

Cons

Rain Bird does not see the value of an employee. People are hired and let go constantly. They hire for the moment, but not for the long term vision. People doing a great job in one department because a different division is struggling at the moment. There are not many tenured people in middle management. Out of my department of 24 people, only 3 had been there over 4 years.
Top management is also so paranoid about having any sales or product cost figures leaked to the competition that they do not even let their sales managers know important costs and figures they could use to better do their jobs. It's insane. The freakiest atmosphere I've ever experienced. Everyone watching their backs and running around paranoid about their jobs. It's weird.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire good people and give them a chance to help your company. Give them the tools they need and you'll be surprised at how they become as much of an asset as your products. They may even add more value to your customers than your product. Let's face it, product differences are getting negligible. However, the human difference can be huge.

Pros

- Pays well, especially in the Tucson market
- If you get the right manager, your career with Rain Bird can be great.

Cons

- Bad decision making by senior management
- Overworked with unfair benefits (especially vacation time)
- Poor processes in place to provide wise decision making
- Strategy does not exist - everything is shoot from the hip

Advice to Senior Management

Some senior staff members create a culture of fear with no opportunities for improvement or change. Working in these groups creates a bad atmophere.

Pros

A lot of fun people to work with

Cons

Most employees would leave if they could.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat employees like people and manage them not your career.

Pros

Quality Product
Recognized by customers & competitors as industry leader
Great, talented co-workers
Industry-leading water conservation efforts
Encourage lateral movement to other positions

Cons

Culture of fear
Focus on reporting & administrative tasks rather than the actual job
Limited independence to do job creatively
“Corrective Action Process” – The biggest joke in the company
No inspiration to grow professionally – focus instead on survival

• I feel compelled to warn any prospective employee of this company to stay away at all costs. Have you ever read a review for a dirty hotel filled with cockroaches, soiled sheets, and no hot water? If so, I’m sure you chose not to stay there. Well, Rain Bird is the “dirty hotel” of corporate America. STAY AWAY!
• You will spend the majority of your time writing reports and justifying your own existence in the company rather than working to move the business forward.
• Employees are ranked by thirds – the top third being the “all-stars,” the middle third being “satisfactory,” and the dreadful BOTTOM THIRD being the ones that need to be “moved out.” As each “bottom-dweller” is moved out, it makes that much more room for everyone else to move down a notch. You can also go from hero to zero overnight. It’s happened many, many times. So, at any given time, 1/3 of all employees are in fear of losing their jobs, another 1/3 is in fear of being moved to the “bottom third,” and the final 1/3 are the “yes” men who are implementing this policy so that they can look good to their superiors.
• Middle managers are not creatively-thinking business leaders who focus on growing the company’s business, but can rather best be described as “henchmen.” They are all “yes” men who are tasked to implement company policies. So, instead of waking up every morning and thinking about what they can do to move the business forward, they wake up and think about how they can best get rid of 1/3 of their subordinates so that they can impress their superiors and move up the dysfunctional corporate ladder. That is the only way to move up in this company.
• When you get into the bottom 1/3 – and you will (I don’t care how smart, talented, or experienced you may be because this has nothing at all to do with any of that) – they will put you in the “corrective action” process. This is just another way of saying that they’re building the case to move you out. They are not trying to correct anything - they are simply getting rid of you. Again, only the “yes” men and their “suck-ups” avoid this, but not forever. Almost everyone ends up here sooner or later.
• They will tell you that they only hire the best – and they do hire many talented, high quality people. Once you’re hired though, all they want to do is burn you and churn you. You will not be given any freedom to do your job creatively. To be clear, there is only one decision maker at Rain Bird, and that is Tony LaFetra, the owner. Anyone and everyone below him is a “yes” man or woman. You have to be a “yes” man in order to move up in the company. Those who get out of line are quickly removed.
• If you are weighing the potential of working at Rain Bird vs. working anywhere else, by all means choose any other alternative that you might have. If your only other alternative is standing in line everyday in a soup kitchen, choose the soup kitchen - you will end up with more dignity than you would working for this company.
• I’ve heard it said that the comments posted on this site regarding Rain Bird are all “sour grapes.” If you believe that may be the case, I would encourage you to do the following: 1) Go to the Rain Bird website and search for a local Rain Bird distributor in your area. Stop in and see what they say about the company. These are Rain Bird’s customers! 2) Ask any employee that you might run across during the interview process about the company’s reputation as described in the postings on this site. Watch how they squirm at the question! 3) Ask about the company’s reputation for high turnover – more squirming! 4) Ask your hiring manager how long he or she has been with the company? 5) Check out the comments for Hunter, Rain Bird’s largest competitor. Ask yourself why they are getting such positive reviews from their employees compared to so many negative reviews for Rain Bird. It is a terrible place to work.
• All I can say is that when I was finally fortunate enough to get out of this company, I felt like 10-year-old Linda Blair at the end of the Exorcist. I was metaphorically lying on the floor - crying and rocking back and forth – traumatized, but completely relieved to be finally free of the demon that had possessed me for so long. Work somewhere else – life is too short to waste it at the Bird.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep doing what you are doing. You are making it very easy for your competitors to compete against you. I’m looking forward to the day when you get some real competition, like John Deere. The shame about it is that you could get even better results without being so miserable and paranoid all the time.

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Pros

Great co-workers - highly motivated, highly educated who strive for the best

Cons

Senior management needs a house-cleaning
Decision making is from the top down which is okay but if you suggest alternative courses of action you are labeled a trouble maker. You do what they tell you to do. If you expect senior management to value your feedback you're mistaken. They take your constructive feedback as an attack and your next annual review will be the first step toward them showing you the door. Its their way or the highway.

Advice to Senior Management

Sell the company to investors who care about their employees. Get rid of the owner's "yes-men" first and foremost. They are horrible managers and wouldn't survive outside Rain Bird, but who cares because these people shouldn't be in senior managment positions anywhere.

Pros

Tucson is a beautiful town
Really great people as your peers, just great.
Since they're always firing, they're always hiring too. You can get a paycheck for about 2 years

Cons

Management is poor. They are immature, inept, timid, deceitful and cruel towards people. It is a top-down, micro managed company. Le Fetra runs it like a prison, and his directors are the bully guards. You learn to shut up and avert your eyes or you get pulled out of line and beaten, (figuratively, of course). You have no decision making power, and no ability to influence plans. You are a clerk. RB thinks it is an entrepreneurial environment where performance determines growth. The exact 180 degree opposite is true. Directors Bergantino and Elezaby are laughing stocks, although they ruin so many people that everyone is afraid and submissive when they are around., (which really pleases them). They would not last 6 months in a real company. Sad really, pathetic losers with power. A few directors are good but most are not.

Pay is good by Tucson standards, but only so so in the national market.

If you are being recruited to RB, you are probably very very good. Confident in yourself, you will think "I will succeed here even though it sounds like a tough place." We all thought that. We are all very very good too. Reality: you will fail, but not because of anything YOU do. So, DO NOT BUY A HOUSE HERE. We all would leave if we could, but the rotten economy and our inability to sell our homes keeps us here.

Engineering is decimated, and much of the knowledge that built the company has been lost
Sales is a high turnover area, with a few old pros who hang on, grateful they are in the field and out of sight of management
Marketing is in constant turmoil and almost nobody has tenure over there either.
Manufacturing is so so, very inconsistent.
HR? Well, the good ones leave in a hurry, horrified. The rest are really just meat processors.
Purchasing? there isn't a purchasing function!

If you think you must come here, talk to a few ex Rain Birders first. There are many of them. Try linked in

Advice to Senior Management

Clean house at the top. Le Fetra and most directors. There is complete failure of leadership. Sell the business. Let competent new owners make the many necessary changes you can never make yourself.