Union Pacific Reviews

Pros

Good people to work with and compensation was satisfactory. Disappointed in communication between managers and Omaha and Omaha's overall knowledge of employee direction. The responsibility its amazing and allows you to develop as a manager quickly.

Cons

Long hours and little vacation. The growth/direction of the company doesn't really seem to want to retain employees. Discouraged educational advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

Help employees grow instead of just filling jobs with whomever is available. Overall good experience but other companies seem to offer better long term lifestyles and growth within the railroad industry.

Pros

Decent pay for a low stress and not very physically demanding job. If you live by the phone and take every call you can make upwards of 70k. That's if you never take a day off.

Cons

Unless you are able to hold a regular job, you will be working on-call all the time. Of course most of the time the phone will ring in the middle of the night which is no fun. You will miss your kids birthdays , games , and your wife. Most longtime railroaders have been divorced. The railroad ranks up there with the military when it comes to divorces. So all that money you might make, will be called for. You will be a broke s.o.b. with no life when it's all said and done.

Advice to Senior Management

Work on getting a set schedule for you trainmen. This company is great at tearing families apart, and I feel that it is unnecessary. If the railroad came with some type of schedule, it would be the best place in the world to work, instead it's like a job from hell having to live by the phone the rest of your life. Something can be done.

Pros

Great for those you like to work outdoors for a good wage. Being on the rails you get to see beautiful scenery, and are mostly alone to use your skills and judgment to do your job. Great camaraderie.

Cons

Having to endure being separated from your family. Never being able to plan anything because you are on an on call 24/7 schedule. Having to work all holidays. Having management come and borderline harass you and give you safety tickets, that take away from your employee score. Kinda like being treated like a child.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow the employees to do their job, as long as done safely. FTX tickets give the impression to the employee that the management is just out to get them, not there to help.

Pros

Great work culture.
You will have the opportunity to work with some very interesting technologies.
Great benefits and plenty of programs for employee wellness.

Cons

If you are careful you will be silo'd into a particular project.
Promotion means only a change of title, offers peanuts in pay raise, at least in IT.

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate better and work towards a common goal. Often, work is replicated and re-done when somebody else in the company has already done it. Broader communication among senior staff and willingness to work with each other will take you a long way.

Pros

A strong company with a solid business model. Current management is very competent and has made significant improvements to employee relations, but still has a long way to go. Pay and benefits are very good.

Cons

Work schedules and demands are extremely tough and there does not seem to be any relief in sight to this condition. Consideration for work and family life balance is paid lip service, but rarely considered in actual practice. The UP demands 100% employee commitment to its priorities.

Advice to Senior Management

Push your ideas for employee treatment down to the lowest level of supervisor. There is a huge disconnect between what you say you want and what actually happens on the ground.

Pros

you get to travel, you have to travel. You can spend hours on an airplane without any compensation.

Cons

everything. There are so many rules that you can't do your job without breaking them.Its set up that way so if anything happens to you it's your fault. They expect you to drive a commercial vehicle beyond the hours allowed by the D.O.T. so your forced into breaking the law. You have to provide your own tools which the company says they'll replace if lost or broken but they never do. There is so much redundant paperwork that you'll think you hired on as a secretary.You work long hours 16 hours or more somedays. The pay is not as good as the track workers so even though you may have gone to school and have provided thousands of dollars worth of tools laborers make more than you. If you hire on as a mechanic there is no place else to go,your considered a seperate craft so the only options for a promotion is a mechanics supervisor which is a crap job and ther is no way to transfer to a diferent department unless you quit and get rehired as something else,loosing you seniority of course.They never have any money for parts but if something is broken your expected to cobble it together with some jackass breathing down your neck asking "how much longer?" the equipment is junk, filty greasy leaky junk and they never wash it so your going to get exposed to a lot of oils and toxic crap. If you like living on fastfood and sleep deprivation this is the job for you.

Advice to Senior Management

pay your employees beter we leave or families behind and sacrifice a lot for you company. Make my job easier by eliminating redundant paperwork,for godsake if somebodey is on an airplane for five hours traveling to the jobsite pay them, it's not like i'm going on vacation. If you crap on your employees long enough,pretty soon you'll have crappy employees.

Pros

Good pay and benifits. When you need to take a day without pay for personal reasons they aways let me.

Cons

Hard on your body to walk on slag. Other employees take advantage of the company because they are in a Union and the sleep at work or slack off. When I got laid off it was with 7 other workers who were all hard workers we just didn't have the seniority. Wheras the older senior workers (not all but enough) were lazy and some would sleep or slack off 6 hours of a 8 hour shift.

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing you can do about the union rules. But try to buck against the union when it comes to the employees that you know don't do their jobs. That way you keep the employees that really work hard and appreciate working for you.

Pros

It is the largest railroad in the united states.We move america.......

Cons

Social life,as a road conductor you miss alot of family events.Its just the way it is when you go out of town for 2-2.5 days at a time.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the Union Pacific making money.............

Pros

The pay, medical insurance,and hard working men and women in transportation are top notch.

Cons

Management sucks and treats employees like dogs. 24/7 call no family life. High stress. constant harassment by management.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep a tight reign on lower level management they are out of control. Respect tranportation and maintenance employees, without our hard work and long hours U.P. would be nothing.

Pros

Union Pacific Railroad has been around since 1861 and is a stable company. Even during tough economic times, there is still a need for rail service, so the railroad will be around for the foreseeable future. Because of a combination of union (agreement) and managers (non-agreement), the pay for all jobs is quite high in comparison to clerical and lower- to middle-level management positions in other companies. If you are comfortable in a semi-structured office environment, Union Pacific is the place to be.

Cons

The company tends to be too rigid in structure and a bit top-heavy with upper management. Also, nepotism has been and continues to be an issue--especially as one climbs the corporate ladder. The management or "non-agreement" clashes often with the union or "agreement" employees, which causes conflict and resentment to occur frequently in departments where there are both types of employees. In addition, the process for applying for promotions can be very involved--even for lateral moves. Often, depending on the position, there will be multiple interview appointments, with multiple interviewers, where the candidates are scored on a subjective point system. This will sometimes result in the lesser candidate being awarded the position--especially if the interviewers happen to personally know one candidate and not the other.

Advice to Senior Management

All managers from executive level on down to the analysts should always be mindful that negative attitude spreads like a cancer. Corrective action is an important tool in any organization, but so is recognition of work done well. Everybody who works in any company is human and has feelings. An occasional effort of appreciation can go a long way.