TRW Automotive Reviews in Detroit, MI Area

Pros

Entry level still given opportunity to interact with customers
Friendly atmosphere
Professional

Cons

Somewhat unorganized
Lack of lean production

Pros

Good pay, good bonus, casual environment.

Cons

Benefits are below par to other companies in similar industry. Benefits are changed at will and often, and there is no such thing is being grandfathered into what was offered when hired.

Pros

Leader in the Braking and OSS technology.

Cons

Middle management basically sucks. Very limited internal recognition and growth. They will try to hire you back after you are dissatisfied and has left the company.

Pros

Good opportunities to learn new IT skills. Good people to work with. Relatively flexible with time off. On-call duties weren't too rough (not a lot of out-of-hours pages to handle). 401k match. Benefits aren't (weren't) too bad.

Cons

Pay was substantially less than what the market was paying for someone with my skills and experience. Raises and bonuses were generally offensively low. HR department is effectively in charge of IT. No respect for ability from manager.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop trying to solve all your "problems" in secret. Trust your staff to do what you hired them to do and stop micromanaging them and questioning their every decision. Not every decision needs to be discussed in excruciating detail in front of a committee of people.

Pros

Good and solid products with nice compromise between quality and price.
Quite good co-operation between US and EU and almost the same standards.
Good solutions at TRW UK taken from Lucas.
You can learn lot about HW/SW validation.
Nice EMI/EMC lab.
Nice atmosphere (friendly staff).
Friendly high level management.

Cons

- Automotive is very unstable branch
- Low cost, low cost and low cost...
- Political decisions at the top of managament (CMC India outsourcing, validation only in UK, almost empty tech center in China (China staff have problems to speak English. They wait for global finance domination and Chinese as a standard/native language in worldwide business. Prepare for that and start learning).
- TRW spend a lot of money unwisely (i.e. compare expenses during 2007 vs 2009). During the economical down they cut almost everything.
- Poor business decisions during past (IT helpdesk in India). They also move more competences/tasks to external outsourcing companies like CMC India (poor comunication and problems with understanding the task).
- High level management very often do not get a feedback about REAL situation from the low level managers (I mean projects, situation overseas and projects)
- Needless endless and boring competition about the leadership/importance (projects) between TRW Germany and TRW US
- Poor R&D level (they do not use widely the latest EMC/EMI CAD/CAE software solutions that minimize HW issues during validation)
- No challenging taks for engineer. Mostly paperwork and meetings (there are better places to use and gain your skills).
- Bureaucracy with not efficient communication (too much focus on processes, meetings, mail communication etc.)
- Mass layoffs from time to time ("You are not an so important!"). Anyway before lay offs some people at TRW "simulated" real work, so it was a good move to motivate staff again.

Advice to Senior Management

Threat employee more seriously. Company can survive, but putting all business in China in the future to significantly reduce the cost means that US and UE will be situated in China pocket.

Pros

Global Company...travel experience...etc are some of what the company offered. There are times when promotions internally are posted and you can move up.

Cons

Standard pay raises, smaller bonuses to lower pay grade employees, high co-ins out of pockets expenses. No more pension.

Advice to Senior Management

Paying attention to what the employees have to offer and not always looking on the outside for development. Higher profit sharing to the people that do the work.

Pros

People here are friend and very willing to help.
Smart people are in surplus here.
Good benefits at full hire.
Management is helpful and gives great direction and encouragement.

Cons

Automotive industry is volatile, when GM/Ford/Chrysler are doing well, TRW does well.
There isn't much to do locally here in Livonia.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep doing what you are doing, encouragement and praise for good work is just as important as pointing out areas where improvement is needed. Keep doing what you are doing.

Pros

The products are interesting and the equipment is high end,

Cons

Poor benifits, high end of cost of living increase is 3% (neg with benifit increase) Low bonus during record profits (2% average). Facility is deplorable & dirty. extremly high number of contract foreign workers with poor english and no work experience. Minimal & discouraging growth within the company. Poor training, improper staffing for programs, long hours, senior managment does not provide a clear path. constant push to use oversea's,

Advice to Senior Management

Cut the red tape on promoting within, stop bring foreign workers over with no experience unable to speak english, Stop waiting to see what other companies are doing before you make a decision or providing a benift to the internal workforce. Stop waiting for employee's to hand in notice to keep them. Do something about the facility and air quality. Provide a compeditive wage & benifits. Have a clear path to train new employee's.

Pros

Good working enviornment, Management flexible for time-off, Quality engineering exposure, exposure to work with good talent around, good 401K match - 6%

Cons

Not very good insurance - if you spouse is working, you pay high fee to add her, base salary is okay - not higher than industry average ( negotiate at the time of offer)

Advice to Senior Management

Need better bonus to the lower level - More profit sharing required. Work environment is good. Better salary structure required.

Pros

When the automotive industry is doing well TRW does well.
John Plant really knows how to make the company make money.
The company pays yearly bonuses.
Lots of really smart people at TRW.
Lots of opportunities to give and receive professional mentoring.
Management generally gives a fair amount of latitude and independence to employees as to how they get their tasks completed.
The company was able to ride out the recent financial and automotive industry disaster and seems to have a strong future ahead of it.
They match 401k contributions.
They also offer a fairly comprehensive medical insurance plan.

Cons

When the automotive industry does poorly then TRW does poorly.
Management seems to want yes-men more than dissenting (but constructive) input on decisions.
Several figures in management seem to be more concerned about advancing their careers and padding their resumes than making sound business decisions.
Yearly bonuses are low.
Medical insurance premiums are ridiculously high.
401k contribution matching is in company stock.
The company is stingy with raises.
HR department moves at a glacial pace.
It's very hard to get any sort of useful feedback in performance reviews - it feels like they use them as a way to keep from having to pay you what your worth instead of offering feedback that will help you improve professionally and improve your value to the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Carefully review and consider the motives, agendas, and priorities of management staff. It is very frustrating to have managers who ask for your professional opinions and input but only want to hear you agree with the course of action they already decided upon. I would also recommend scrapping or at least overhauling the current performance review system (EPDP). There are good aspects to working for TRW but the cons make it hard to decide to stay with the company. It may cost a little bit more to ensure people are treated with respect but it will pay off when the economy finally turns around and people start getting offers.