Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. Reviews

Pros

UL affords a great work/life balance. Flexible schedule with the ability to occasionally work from home makes it easy to balance responsibilities at home with those at work. Coworkers are genuinely friendly and easy to get along with, even those in management. Used to be a monopoly in the industry until newer companies caught them sleeping and took away market share. Now they seem to have their act together in terms of future goals and planning to regain market share. Your day to day work, though monotonous, helps protect consumers from unsafe products.

Cons

Change, Change, Change. As I said, UL is working hard to regain market share while branching into new markets. Oftentimes, this means changing things just for the sake of changing. Many ideas get implemented without thoroughly thinking through the immediate impact, and many ideas get abandoned within a few weeks. Seems like every few weeks, there is a complete retooling of work flow processes and systems. On a day to day level, work can become monotonous. For engineers, not much technical skill is required (though communication skills and ability to explain technical concepts are very important, which is a pro). Hard to figure out the basis for promotions and raises. Salary is on the lower end of the industry average.

Advice to Senior Management

See things through completion. A lot of exciting and interesting concepts are thrown around, but oftentimes, they get abandoned, either because of feasibility issues or just plain neglect.

Promote ingenuity and innovation. There are many new enthusiastic workers coming into the organization. Push them to share their ideas and get involved. The old corporate culture promoted complacency and just getting by, and there are still many holdovers from that time.

Reward performance and give more feedback regarding performance. It is hard to figure out how promotions work and what skills are needed to be mastered in order to move from one position to another. It is clear that a certain degree of favoritism did exist before, but that is slowly being phased out.

Pros

company is low pressure and enjoys huge respect and strong brand recognition. nice benefits package in spite the non-for-profit status. several locations in the US and around the world gives flexibility and career opportunities. \

Cons

Stable business but lacks the kick to be really relevant to clients. Too much bureaucratic and not as business oriented as it could be.

Advice to Senior Management

get a rid of the "non-profit" style and

Pros

Work/life balance is very important to the company

Cons

not a lot of room for advancement

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more with your employees

Pros

Working with other employees for a safer world.
Getting to handle the products before they are released into the market.

Cons

Many things are political based.
At the end of the week the most important thing your boss is going to look at is your number of completed projects and not the complexity or value of it.

Advice to Senior Management

There is a limit to how much work can be completed within a week. If you push your employees too hard, then burnout might occur.

Pros

Good company reputation and proud to work for a company with great vision.

Cons

Not much promotion opportunity. With new title created, it make you feel like you got demoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep on LEAN

Pros

flexible work time and good office culture with certain acceptable level of balance between work and life, top management is very open to all staff

Cons

low compensation payment compared with competitors , less job advancement opportunity ,

Pros

It is a company based on public safety and they follow those guidelines even in today's market. The work was challenging, rewarding, and always kept you interested.

Cons

Local management needs to work on their communication and employee care. There was a disconnect between certain managers and the staff that created some minor problems.

Advice to Senior Management

Underwriters Laboratories is a great company to work for and I think anyone would benefit from working there. Local management needs to work more on its skills to include employees in decisions and not micro manage them.

Pros

You can have free time as much as you want, and nobody cares. that means nobody listens to you especially, management.

Cons

It has big problem with management. They don't work, they just want to manage. They just want to travel. they do only politics.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't travel for nothing. Don't make rumors about employees. Don't be greedy. Think about how you can take care of your people.
I've never seen nice and respectful manager in this company.

Pros

People are nice, the working environment is good.

Cons

Pay is not direclty link with performance

Pros

Work and Life Flexibility
Co-workers are fun to be around
Enjoy helping manufacturers bring their product to market
Client interaction

Cons

Limited Opportunities for career growth
Too much red-tape to get things done
Unnecessary levels of management
Executive Leadership tries to implement production line/manufacturing tools in a purely service industry..it is not working!

Advice to Senior Management

Groom young engineers to become the leaders of the company. I do not see any encouragement for engineers to go out and get an advanced degree