The Nielsen Company Reviews in Chicago, IL Area

Pros

easy going
low expectations for performance

Cons

pay, but of course, this is balanced with the low work load the responsibilities

Pros

Nielsen offers great brand recognition for your resume making it a great place to start your career.

There are a lot of young people working there which creates a good workplace atmosphere--if you don't mind being supervised by people 1-2 years your senior.

The company is turning around and might be profitable again soon.

Their business model is changing rapidly; this could create some good opportunities.

In Chicago, they have an office in the burbs and the Loop making it easy to choose which office to work from. Also, it seems easy enough to work from just about any major city in the US.

Cons

Frat-house management techniques--for example: my first week there, the VP noticed i left my computer on my desk over night, so to "teach [me] a lesson," he hid my computer so I'd think it was stolen. When I complained to HR, they just said, "that's the way he is!"

Benefits are terrible--They only match 1/2 of your 401k contribution which vests after 3 years. Health insurance has a $1000 deductible. This makes it impossible to work here if you have kids or ever plan on retiring. Pay is also on the low end.

Highly political atmosphere. Because they hire an army of young people, supervisors do not critically evaluate performance. Instead they rely on superficial traits and biased feedback from directors.

I never really had the chance to work with people who were really experienced and knew a lot about the industry. All the people I interacted with were young folks hired out of college with no real-world experience.

Way too much outsourcing. I almost think then next move will be to hire IRI to do their analytics!

And the worst part of the job: you have to work with clients who don't give a damned what your reports say.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat employees with more dignity. Remove managers who have a record of disrespecting employees. Improve training programs.

Pros

The people are generally nice and collaborative. The location downtown is convenient for most people. It's close to mass transit for both city dwellers and suburbanites.

Cons

The rewards and recognition system at Nielsen is completely broken. Bonus payouts are purposely made a mystery and the company provides "fuzzy" explanations if you ask for clarity on how they are calculated. Merit increases are extremely low and most people get them on an 18-24 month cycle. The key to success at Nielsen is to come into work and smile every day. It's a completely conflict avoiding culture, meaning that people that have learned how to smile no matter how bad things are get rewarded. Never make waves!

Advice to Senior Management

Do something to fix the rewards and recognition system. Compensation needs a complete overhaul and the idea of identifying 20% of your workforce as substandard performers is an outdated/unproven model (GE abandoned it years ago).

Pros

Great products and the people

Cons

Forcing 20% of your workforce into a "under performing" bucket is destroying moral and pushing people out the door, creating a competitive and unsatisfying work experience. Raises pushed to 18-24 months for majority of people and very low. No stock options or long term incentives. Why stay?

Pros

Work life balance
Virtual teams
Global environment

Cons

Too much emphasis on promoting fresh graduates from school and not enough emphasis on taking care of experienced hires
Too much focus on offshoring,not enough focus on growth opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

Please make people your focus and create an environment where experienced hires are made welcome and would like to grow their careers

Pros

Good vision, can see actions against the vision.

Cons

Some major gaps in communication.

Pros

The people, and more are quitting every day. Interesting clients and good way to get experience in marketing.

Cons

Management. The only thing that we care about is cost leadership. Absolutely no interest in investing in Human Capital. Looking to delay compensation and promotions as much as possible. Outsourcing is greatly impacting the quality of the work.

Advice to Senior Management

Think long-term. While it is fair to focus on cost-reduction, you are alienating all of your top performers. Highly motivated individuals are losing their desire to work for you.

Pros

Work-life balance, flex schedules, can work remotely depending on role, awesome people

Cons

Inefficient use of resources, re-org messy and mis-guided

Advice to Senior Management

2010 re-org in Analytics forces specialization and depth of skill-set at the expense of breadth.
Pre- reorg, the choice was made by employees, where they could be specialists or generalists based on their interest. Should have stayed that way for employee satisfaction.

Pros

The Nielsen Company offers Flexible hours and name recognition

Most associates are helpful and that is mainly how you learn your job

Cons

Management is out of touch with lower level employees

People are too obsessed with power and are scared of losing their jobs

Nielsen keeps laying off skilled people and replacing with younger less expensive workers

Advice to Senior Management

Advice to management - people are the key to the companies success

Sending work overseas is not the answer -keeping employees motivated and happy is the formula for long term success

Pros

The workplace is staffed with a younger crowd (mostly no more than 10 years out of college) that asks for a good deal of flexibility. This shines through in the average work day (can begin at 6am or 10am depending on individual preferences) and vacation time and even "working from home" with company laptops.

Cons

Executives are focused on issues other than the actual product associates work toward delivering on a daily basis. As such, the company is not likely to spend on unnecessary items that other companies might to boost morale and cohesion in the workplace (no work-sponsored extra-curricular events whatsoever).

Advice to Senior Management

Management is doing a fine job of working with lower level associates, but executives are totally disengaged. Consider a budget for discretionary spending on associate activities.