Pros

The only reason to work at this plant is if you HAVE to live in the area and don't want a commute of more than 20 minutes.

Cons

No support at all from management at the department level. This plant is an environmental nightmare. You would think that a multibillion dollar company would have more environmental safeguards in place.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees like people and build some trust in your management

Pros

Offers flexibilty in balancing the work and the personal. Great learning opportunity to learn about all aspects of the cosmetic industry from sales to product development to production. New York office is centrally located in the heart of midtown.

Cons

Inefficiency permeates every department. Lack of internal communication. Resistance to positive change. Old infrastructure; accounting still uses AS 400. Reluctance to invest in time and money saving systems. They cut costs in counterproductive ways.

Advice to Senior Management

- Solicit feedback from those other than management before implementing radical changes.
- Be open minded.
- Emulate what works for other companies in the industry.
- Be transparent and formerly communicate via office wide emails or memos and major changes.
- Standardize procedures.
- Conduct formal orientation and training for new hires.
- Streamline procedures to reduce excessive paperwork.
- Look in to the SAP system.
- Hire full time IT employee instead of outsourcing

Pros

Alcan was a great place to work before it was taken over by Rio Tinto. People there were very friendly and helpful and there are a lot of team work. Sometimes, there are some office politics, but I don't believe it is worst than any other places that I worked previously. It is a very multi-cultural place to be and they are very high on family and life-work balance.

Cons

Because of the take-over and the economic crisis, there has been a lot of uncertainty in the Alcan group. A lot of people have left the company or is planning to leave. Sometimes, the pace is a bit slow. There are a lot of employees who have been with the company for a long time.

Advice to Senior Management

n/a

Pros

First of all Rio Tinto Alcan is a very large corporation owned by Rio Tinto the second largest mining company in the world.
Career opportunities are good for qualified professionals as long as you are mobile.
Health, safety and the environment are truly a top priority and our main concern is that everybody goes back home healthy.
Work/Life balance is also high on the list.
Compensation varies a lot depending on the division you work for, from above average for the industry to below average in some cases.

Cons

The current world economic crisis has hit Rio Tinto very hard due to the 40 billion USD debt incurred when procuring Alcan Inc.
In order to deal with the crisis Rio has announced the curtailment of 14’000 jobs worldwide, bringing incertitude to its employees until the cuts are finally implemented throughout the organization with the expected negative impact in employee morale.

Advice to Senior Management

Complete the curtailment of operations as soom as possible in order to avoid an extended period of incertitude to employees. The worst thing for us is the incertitude if we will be affected or not by the cuts. The longer this incertitude exists, the larger the damage to morale.

Pros

Flexible work schedule; good company earnings lead to great bonus

Cons

global compensation plan too rigid; no career growth for IT; too many macro buracracies at the global level that are not effective at the local level;

Advice to Senior Management

don't treat full-time employees like consultants; don't appreciate the "do your job, here is your check; see you next week" mentality