Reynolds and Reynolds Reviews

Pros

Steady, albeit low, paycheck
Fun coworkers
paid holidays
401(k) matching pretty good
fairly easy to get hired - if you have a pulse, you're in

Cons

Creativity is stifled
raises are non-existent
low salary
no training
we lie to our clients on a daily basis
our product is subpar

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees. Morale is the lowest I have ever witnessed in my career. You cannot pay an entry level salary to smart college graduates. You need to stop hiring people who are not marketing-minded.

Pros

Good people in the field
Software is great

Cons

No empowerment outside of corporate
Customers often close doors due to bad reputation (contracts)
Sales compensation plan is cryptic and untrustworthy

Advice to Senior Management

Middle management needs more power to make decisions.
Make an effort to fix the bad reputation.

Pros

The benefits package is phenomenal, and the other employees are wonderful to work with. I could not think of a better place to work.

Cons

Human Resources has a rather odd way of managing incoming employees, as well as interviewees with regards to politeness and civility.

Pros

A well respected company since 1866, Reynolds and Reynolds offers stability and innovation, a rare combination in the current market.

Cons

They do put one through a rigorous screening process to get to the point of hiring, but it's worth it.

Pros

The schedules were flexible, changing schedules was easy, The work was easy to learn and easier to do. A cool way to buy lunch from your coming paycheck before taxes from the company lunch room.

Cons

Management favored long-time employees and full-timers. Part timers weren't treated very well. Tended to take the word of anyone who complained over any number of others who said they were lying. Believed complaints without investigating the issue and hearing both sides. Management was constantly changing procedures every other month and ignoring the people who do the work when they tell them it's inefficient. Management disregarded any advice from the people who actually do the work. Even if everyone is saying the same thing. They seemed to enjoy making the job as complicated and inefficient as possible. Also the communication between departments was terrible and often caused rush jobs at the end of the day when they could have been done earlier in the day were the departments better at communicating with each other. They tended to punish a whole group of people for what one or two people did which does nothing for morale.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat part time workers better. When you're trying to find procedures to make things more efficient, the best way to do that is to ask the people who actually do the work on a daily basis. They'll know better than anyone else the best way to do their job more efficiently. When a complaint is made by an employee, actually investigate the alleged wrong-doing. Only punish the wrong-doers, not everyone surrounding them. It's inefficient.

Pros

great training for automotive industry and people you work with

Cons

CEO and the way they treat their sales staff. Treated like a croney, not respected by upper management or owner

Advice to Senior Management

Treat people with respect and not like they are replaceable every day.

Pros

The only good thing about working at Reynolds and Reynolds is this job is a good resume builder.

Cons

The employee morale was extremely low in the department as was the pay. I was told by recruiting and management during the interview process that there would be opportunities to earn bonuses. The bonuses were to bump my pay up 10-15k a year. This was and is a complete falsehood. Everyone was told this when they were hired. Don't expect to make more than a few hundred dollars more than your base salary. Truly incompetant management with ZERO marketiing experience. Nearly everyone is fresh out of college and misrepresent themselves to clients as "marketing professionals" (not the employees fault; just an example of the shadiness of the company to sell a product backed by non-existent marketing professionals).

Benefits take a full 5 months to go into effect. You cannot use vacation days until a full calendar year has completed. VERY BIG BROTHER. Video cameras everywhere. You are tracked by “locator” all day long. Management absolutely runs reports on where you are spending your time during the day.

Reynolds is a horrid company. Read the reviews and take them to heart. Every word is true.

Advice to Senior Management

A. Try actual management/ leadership training outside of Reynolds classes. I have never seen a more incompetent management force.

B. Give the poor employees working there a little respect. They are working so hard for very little pay.

Pros

Extremely marketable job title and "potential" skill set, although you will have to be able to sell this to another potential employer. Because you will be responsible for very little, you will not actually learn new skills, technologies, or marketing approaches. However, if you are capable of painting a picture in an interview to someone unfamiliar with Reynolds that makes it look like you actually perform challenging tasks and have some marketing competency, you might be able to use the title as a means to trade up quickly.

Cons

Horrible, horrible company morale. Since the essential job functions are mindless (there is no actual strategy development- upper level managers have little idea on how to execute it) which results in minimal pay, employees do not even have to try to care and this mentality is only evident after you start. Couple this with the lack of training (and the dismal quality of what IS included in "training") and you have a recipe for career suicide. You will work for inept supervisors who have little idea of how to do your job, let alone their own, and will gain little marketable experience while pushing yourself further into career irrelevance. As your Reynolds tenure increases, your chances of finding something elsewhere decrease exponentially.

Advice to Senior Management

What's the point? Here is my advice to new/young employees:

Take this job only if you need a job now, and cannot delay a dependable bi-weekly check. If there are other opportunities available, take them. Even if there aren't, you may be better served to be patient and wait it out.
Apply to other jobs AGGRESSIVELY. Even though you have no vacation time, you will be able to take "unpaid" time to go to interviews if you make up the time during that week and you still get paid. It's worth it.
If you have been there for 6 months, try harder. If you have been there for 1+ year, your time is running out. 2+ years and it's probably time to move to a new city and try something else.

Pros

It's a good place for college graduates to get started in their career field.
It's an available job in this tough economy.
Fun co-workers.
Matches 401K pretty well.
Good experience builder.

Cons

Low employee morale.
CEO decides everything before anything happens.
Non-competitive salaries.
Not enough experienced associates - too many college graduates. (leadership needed)
High turnover.

Advice to Senior Management

Take the time to hear what your associates are saying before making a quick decision to save a buck. Your company is built on people, not numbers.

Pros

The work is ridiculously easy and you can often finish all of your days work within a couple hours, leaving the rest of the day to "look busy" and just sort of hang out.

Extremely flexible with scheduling considering most of the employees are part time college students.

Cons

The management is pretty micromanagement heavy and the job can get very boring very quickly.
The pay is not great.