Takata Reviews

I worked at Takata full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Free food in the break room.

Cons – Incompetent workforce that is widespread and widely acceptable.
Lack of accountability, professionalism, and resources in every group.
Low morale and extremely dissatisfied, unhappy employees.
Massive recall of ~3.1 million airbags resulting in a loss of $307M. Google it. Investors beware.
Lack of innovation, inventions, goals. Clock in, clock out, non-competitive, unsustainable environment.
Poor performing plants, plant management, and senior management.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to put your relatives on the payroll.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Takata full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Are there any?
They dont provide anything better than any other place....they strive to be below average, but you better not!

Cons – Long hours and still low pay. Takata has some MAJOR catching up to do to be even close to on par with many other places. It will take YEARS at the rate things are going.
People are still bailing as fast as they can to escape the plague that becomes this place, and it's been two years now.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop promoting people just because they have worked at the company for many years. If they were actually any good, they would be GONE, but instead they become the new untalented and lazy leadership that trains the new hires. Someone needs to hit the reset button at this place!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Takata full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Free coffee and tea.
If you ever get promoted to director level, you may taste some good benefit at last but promotion rarely happens to right people.

Cons – Depends on what department you work in, but people in some departments are really miserably working - especially operation and quality. Working overtime and weekend becomes norm, but no rewards.
There are too many departments in this company. Too many unknown departments (and their team names are confusing), too many directors and too many managers. I'm sure many actual employees don't know what other departments are doing.
No matter what department you work in, short resource is always an issue. Company can't hire new people because of no budget. Good performers leave as soon as they find a better job. Farewell emails also become norm. Company can't afford hiring new ones, so existing ones (except managers/directors/executives) always suffer too much workload. Managers think anybody is replaceable so they don't treat you right here.
Obviously company is not doing well and doesn't seem to get any better (actually getting worse and worse every day).
"Quality First" is such a joke. Very dishonest to not only employees but also customers and consumers who actually drive cars."Sinking ship" is really true to this company.

Advice to Senior Management – None. They won't change no matter what.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Takata full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Free parking.
Free but really bad coffee.
Free cheap tea.

Cons – All of the relatives of the upper management work for the company.
Upper management would rather spend lots of money on unreliable printers than on the employees.
Upper management would rather spend lots of money on renovating the main conference room over and over again than giving pay raises and bonuses to deserving employees.
Upper management would rather hire cheap labor then spend lots of money on travels to fix quality issues.
Upper management loves to spend lots of money on boondoggle trips.
The FBI raided the office one time.
There is little to no R&D/core. Most of the engineers in Core left.
Only dummies work here.

Advice to Senior Management – None. The management can't be rescued.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Takata full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – There is free food in the break room sometimes.

Cons – Upper management is out of touch.
Pay is low. The company cannot compete.
The good engineers leave the company quickly. Farewell emails are constant. Every week, there is at least one (or two) engineer who leaves.
Only the junky ones stay. The caliber of the engineers is very low overall.
Even the interns and co-ops do not want to work here. Almost all do not return. They make the wage of a Wal-Mart employee.

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in your employees by paying them at least at the average industry level so you can reap dividends later. Cut the bureaucracy and reduce the amount of paperwork/grunt work for your engineers. Don't ignore the low morale and job dissatisfaction of your employees. Focus on innovation, technology, actual design work. Else, just a matter of time that you will go under.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Takata

Pros – People are generally nice to work with. Very young crowd.

Cons – Management and HR are blind to the obvious and blame eachother for not being able to do more for employees. Employees are severely overworked, underpaid and leaving at a rapid rate.

If employees ask for help or state that they have too much work, or are not fairly compensated, they are told not to complain. Management has the mentality "if you don't like it, you can leave--you are replaceable".

Management doesn't ask for or employee feedback. If provided with concerns they act afraid to seek approval from upper management to ask for more staff or properly reward good employees and therefore spit out rampant excuses as to why nothing can be done.

The bottom line is Engineers and customers are suffering.
Since employee costs are down due to the many recent departures, and training of new hires falls on existing engineers, management is literally unaffected by the major issues at this place so they easily turn a blind eye and let their teams hold the bag.

This situation promotes the other main problem at Takata: Inadequate Management.
Since the team is left holding the bag, they take care of the issues and deal with the painful workload so in many cases management is not involved and doesnt know what is going on. This makes them less beneficial to their team and essentially useless. There are many management people at Takata that take pride in doing as little as possible by "delegating to their team". These people are cowards that don't have the skills to do the job they need to do.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop ignoring your employees. They are your most valuable resources and are vital to the longevity of the company.
Stop promoting people that arent capable of benefitting the company and the teams they work with.
If you don't start changing your ways, your competition will take your best people and kick your ass.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Takata

Pros – It was a great experience learning how a manufacturing industry is operated. We were able to watch t.v on our breaks. That's about it for the pros.

Cons – Just a few....You must be very careful what you say to other co-workers, as most will inform superiors. Nobody looks out for one another, it's all about "how can I make myself look better by making someone else look bad?" Beauracracy plays a major role in this company. Management and supervisors will blme operators for their imcompetance. Soley because operators are viewed as inferior, and therefore are an easy target. Oh yeah, and you can forget about talking to HR. They are just as bad.

Advice to Senior Management – It doesn't really matter because things won't change. Maybe, get away from the classical style of management. Introduce some new and creative changes/ideas. Remember, employee moral is very important. If there is no incentive for an operator to do a good job besides losing there job, then you will lose and have lost many valuable employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Takata

Pros – If you are incompetent, but good at ass kissing this is the place for you. Any type of merit based performance or review is completely unknown to management at Takata. Good politicians will do well.

Cons – Management is incompetent and unethical. Completely. No exceptions. They all sport advanced degrees from mail order places like Kennedy Western University (credit for "life experience"). They willingly fabricate or change data (test results, etc.) to hide problems with airbag products.

High turnover as competent engineers leave as soon as they are able.

Senior management lacks the necessary skills to understand and make intelligent product decisions.

Advice to Senior Management – Layoff for two weeks then quit for good.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Takata

Pros – If takata is your first job right out of school, it is worth to try it out. Is a good place to learn everything you saw at school and you will be suprised of how much info is avilable and if you visit many manufacturing plants you will learn a lot about the different products. As you progress you will find that this is not the perfect company to work on a long term. In mexico the best reason to work is the vacations, you will have a month of vacations and you will always spend christmas and new years eve with your family.

Cons – As you meet new people and you start to get information and gossips of people, you will find out that this is not the place to work for in long term. Managers does not have the necessary Skills and School Background to be good at their jobs, they do not even care how six sigma works or what does the six sigma tools mean. Grown is limited to certain people with relatives on management positions, you will not be changed to other position, there is high skilled people that has over 6 years doing the same work as an engineer. Raises are very low each year, and the motivation to do a good job and get rewared is a myth. Feedback is very limited and coordinators does not want to commit with problems.

Advice to Senior Management – Go to school, study an MBA, or a master degree in manufacturing and leadership, hire managers with leadership with a degree from an important school. Move the people with many years of expirience to other area. Feedback to the worker.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Takata

Pros – Great experience in fast-paced design and test engineering- once you have worked here you will be well prepared and qualified for other engineering positions.
Great benefits and 401k plan.
Generally fun work environment, depending on group.

Cons – Salary far below industry standards.
Personal life takes a back seat to the job. Long hours and much travel required depending on who you work for.
Management refuses to recognize talent in performance reviews or compensation.
Takes several years to earn any extra vacation.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend