UTC Fire & Security Reviews

Pros

Employee Scholar Program is the best in the industry.
Lot of opportunities to move within the company across different business units

Cons

Usual downsides of a big corporation - Lot of red tape, lot of approvals required for every single change, inefficiencies

Pros

Industry leader in Life Safety

Cons

US Branding needs to be better

Advice to Senior Management

Stop changing our name

Pros

Working with some of the best products on the market.

Cons

The only way to make it up the ladder is to stab everyone around you in the back.

Advice to Senior Management

Try leading and not gossiping.

Pros

The benefits are OK and equivalent to other major employers of this size.

Cons

Some office departments are run by unqualified and untrained leaders. The workload is severe and their is no recognition of jobs well done. There is no training of people promoted to office supervision and as a result the management style is yelling and constant interruptions. Office favoritism is rampant and the human resource department is part of the problem. It is impossible to go there and get a fair hearing. There does not seem to be any management review of department moral or supervisory performance. Basically, any style goes!

Advice to Senior Management

Require good supervisory practice training to be a requirement for all supervisors and managers
Provide an unobstructed path to hear employee complaints and suggestions .Walk around and listen for the yelling. It is not hard to hear it ! Refuse to tolerate bad supervisory practices and to insure they act in a manner appropriate for a company like UTC

Pros

Since UTC is such a large company it has the ability to offer many products and services to potential and existing customers.

Cons

UTC is Fire and Security is new in the industry and went through rebranding. It is now called Chubb Fire & Security, which will just take time for the industry to become familiar with. The company is still going through a lot of growing pains.

Pros

As part of United Technologies Fire & Security, the pay and benefits were fairly decent. There is also the "potential" for lots of mobility throughout the UTC organization.

Cons

Really too many to list here. Suffice it to say that the only business process this organization does well is laying-off or firing people, that should tell you where its focus lies. The management is poor and self-serving. As a result, poor organizational performance, which has been consistent for years now, is blamed on the people in the field versus the company's leaders, which drives the constant attrition. It is no mystery why people are leaving this organization in droves.

Advice to Senior Management

In general, any management that has been at the helm during the last 2-3 years should be removed. Start focusing on the customers, enabling the success of your field offices, and develop a consistent product offering and marketing plan.

Pros

Very good pension plan (basically, UTC matches your contribution) and you can get cheap travel to certain locations. It is also a very good name to have on your CV.

Cons

Man management is poor. Constant firefighting, constantly changing priorities, little thought as to the effect on the employee's personal life. Ranting tends to get managers noticed and promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Value your employees more and see them as human beings instead of mere resources. Remember that happy employees are more productive than unhappy ones. Recognise local achievement better and raise profile of all successful employees.

Pros

Truly enjoy working with my manager.

Cons

HR department is running out of ink to write the Reduction in Force papers. How can you take someone seriously when they have RIF's as frequently as the wind changes? Some of the best and brightest have been forced out and none replaced. Customers have complained that the changes have given them second thoughts about signing lengthy agreements.

Advice to Senior Management

What is the customer supposed to believe? Is their account manager going to be around more than a month? Will he/she be let go even if their highly skilled?

Pros

If you are an eager learner, there are things to be learned by yourself.

Cons

The different sites might be different. However at my location, the moral is so bad. Everything is 1:1. There is no tranparent communication both inside the group and crossfunction groups.

Pros

They pay pretty well. The benefits are good and have lots of options. If you're not a manager, it's a good place to be, because corporate leaves you alone.

Cons

If you ARE a manager, be prepared to choke on tons of unnecessary red tape. Things require many layers of approval to get done, and the process changes frequently - without communication - so you do lots of things 5, 6, 14 times. Lots of non-value-added time creating "slide decks" and "packets" which are glorified PowerPoint presentations with embedded files.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of your outsourced IT provider. They're simply awful. Things take forever to get done, IF they're done at all, and they're usually wrong. They provide you horrible service at a premium price.