W.L. Gore Reviews

Current Employee – been working at W.L. Gore full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Great benifits, family life, would recomend.

Cons – Culture is hard to get used to.

Advice to Senior Management – We dont have management,

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at W.L. Gore full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Wonderful company culture that engages you and lets you contribute your best. Enterprise has a strong technology base and leverages for long term results.

Cons – Not a great place for the individual that needs a lot of direction unless directly involved in making the products. There is a great diversity of management styles throughout the organization and that can be difficult to navigate for some.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at W.L. Gore full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Work Life Balance is good and the benefits are competitive.
Nice people to work with

Cons – Culture is not the same, seems more like "no child left behind", where everything slows down to meet the intellectual abilities of the least capable, some of whom are in leadership. Not a company for hard chargers or highly competent, the masses will bring you down with misuse of the culture. Assume that most positives are from out of schoolers, who won't know any better. J&J, Siemens, Medtronic all much stronger companies and support the vaunted "freedom principle" better than Gore does. Do not expect to be rewarded for hard work, instead bring in muffins and a smile, you will be in leadership in no time.

Advice to Senior Management – Culture is out of date and practiced poorly, Gore used to be a hardcore engineering environment, now it is soft, too soft for rapid development. You need talent, not a bunch of kids out of school. Hope you will be around to celebrate 60 years, but feel there is a crash coming.

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

Current Employee – been working at W.L. Gore full-time

Pros – The benefits are great. The culture is nice if it is followed.

Cons – The lattice creates so many leaders, but too many to work with. It would be better to have a team leader instead of five people to follow. Each leader has different ideas and communication styles and it feels like the leadership team is not all together on production ideas.

Advice to Senior Management – The power of small teams is so important to the culture. Now, there are large teams with a lot of conflict and it should not be this way.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at W.L. Gore full-time for more than a year

Pros – * Benefits (Medical, Dental, Vision, Retirement, Etc.) are great, some of the best I've encountered.

* Not a "workaholic" culture; leaders seem to understand that people have families and lives outside of work. You are not expected to work insane hours.

* New campus in Phoenix is a well-designed, visually inspiring work environment.

Cons – * Benefits are great (as noted), but wages are very low compared to similar jobs at other companies. Raises are typically less than 3% per year. The only way to do better is to move into "leadership," (managment) or change "commitments" (jobs).

* Also as noted, the company respects work-life balance, but concepts such as telecommuting, job sharing and flexible scheduling are not practiced or encouraged. This is one of those places where the bosses apparently believe that you aren't working unless they can see you at your desk. Whatever schedule or hours your leader works, you will be expected to work the same schedule.

* The company does not use or embrace social media, but IT monitors employee use of Facebook, Twitter, etc. and will report to leadership and HR anything they feel is "inappropriate." In fact I'd go so far as to say if you work for Gore, you probably should not be on social media. At the very least, do not tell anyone where you work, or talk about work in any way.

* The company is freakishly obsessed with security. I have worked for defense contractors that were less paranoid. Outsiders are not allowed in any plant without a security escort, and that includes associate family members, even kids. Cameras are everywhere and employees not only have to badge in and out of buildings, but often must flash badges to move within buildings as well. During orientation, we were told we should not even discuss our work with our families when out in public, if we could help it. Very "Big Brother."

* The company is almost cultish about it's vaunted "culture," especially long-time "associates" (the Gore term for employees.) But actually explaining the culture or putting it into practice is another story. From my experience, it seems the culture only applies to engineers, researchers, and people in manufacturing. No one seems able to explain how the "culture" is supposed to work or be applied in other areas, such as HR, finance or support functions. As others have noted, Gore associates, especially "lifers" (and there are many in this company) will not accept any criticism or their "culture," nor will they even consider that employees who come in with experience from other companies, might actually have good ideas or better ways of doing things. It the "Gore way" or the highway. The prevailing attitude seems to be "love it or leave it."

* The company's "contribution and compensation" system, which determines yearly raises and can be the only thing resembling a "performance review," that some employees get, is a joke. The idea is that it provides employees with a "360-degree picture" of how they are doing and how they contribute to their teams. In an ideal world, employees would be evaluated strictly based on the work they do. In reality, it is little more than an adult version of the 8th grade slambook. Employees can and do evaluate other employees based on whether they are friends, or not. If your teammates do not like you as a person, it does not matter how hard you work. You will be voted "the weakest link" on your team, and in the worst-case scenario, you will be invited into the bosses' office to discuss your "future in the enterprise" with HR present. If you go to work for Gore, try to make friends with everyone on your team, or you will have no future with the company. If your teammates do not like you personally, watch your back.

Advice to Senior Management – * It's the 21st century, not the 1950s. Accept that Gore is no longer a few people working out of a garage. It is a very large, highly complex corporation, larger than some on the Fortune 500. Like all organisms, the "Gore culture" must evolve and change, or it will die. Let your associates, especially those with experience in other companies, help you make that happen.

* It is possible that the medical device industry, with its many layers of rigid government oversight and regulation, is simply not compatible with the "freedom" and "empowerment" the "Gore culture" is supposed to provide. If the "culture" cannot be adapted to fit this reality, the only way to save the "culture" may be to sell spin off the medical products division into it's own company.

* Raise wages. You will not continue to attract the people you need to attract if you continue to lowball them.

* Scrap the C&C process. Replace it with something that actually works and evaluates employees on the actual work they do, not on whether or not they hang out with the rest of the team at Happy Hour on Friday nights.

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

Current Employee – been working at W.L. Gore full-time for more than a year

Pros – The company focuses on culture fit during the interview process because it is critical to success at Gore for a variety of reasons. The first is - technical skill can be taught. If you lack some technical skill, we can teach you that. However, teaching an individual to have interpersonal skill is not as easy.. At Gore, associates genuinely appreciate each other, care for one another, help each other be successful. These are things that cannot be taught. Second - Gore is a culture of collaboration. Associates enjoy working in team settings. So, if you like to make decisions on your own, be the big boss and run your own show, Gore is not the place for you. It's all about teamwork and collaboration at Gore.

Gore has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Companies to Work For and it's because of our culture. It's not for everyone but if it is for you - you will truly enjoy a career at Gore!

Cons – There are no "cons" to working at Gore. The interview process can take some time due to the collaborative nature of the culture but it's worth the wait.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep doing what you're doing Gore Leadership! It's working.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at W.L. Gore full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Gore allows associates to grow within the company. They have many long term associates. Its a world class company to work for. They have many different types of companies within the umbrella of Gore and have a world class culture. They care about their employees.

Cons – The economy affects all of us and I think Gore has done its best to be a good company regardless of the economy.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep striving to do your best, like you always do!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at W.L. Gore full-time for more than a year

Pros – Beautiful new campus in Phoenix, lots of free food, and some associates have a lot of freedom to come and go as we please and work from home whenever we want to.

Cons – Where do I even start? This is a horrible, ugly organization. It's the most political place I've ever worked, with people constantly jockeying for position given the crazy way leaders are voted into their roles (and out!) and the insane annual ranking process.

Formal education only matters if you're in Engineering. For anyone else, you can be a complete idiot who barely graduated high school and as long as you are "supported" by the cool kids, you'll get placed into a leadership role. If you're not a leader, but you are smart, capable, and experienced, you ARE going to be frustrated. Guaranteed. Actually, there are even a lot of leaders who hate this place. Especially "new" ones (anyone with less than 5 years at Gore is considered new). And try being hired in as a leader - forget about being successful. It's just not possible. You will be despised for having dared violate the cultural norm of "natural leadership" by having the audacity to accept the job offer. And people will openly express their disdain for you without hesitation because they and many others believe the culture encourages them to do so!

Most of the leaders are either men or lesbians. Seriously - as a straight woman I've never felt so discriminated against. Accepting their job offer was the biggest mistake of my career and I'm terrified that their stupid Non Compete Agreement is going to prevent me from escaping this nightmare.

Advice to Senior Management – 1. Stop being such hypocrites and start calling yourself management. You are bosses as much as you deny it. And most of you are pretty lousy at it. 2. Stop hiring experienced people into this snake pit until you decide it's not okay to openly discriminate against them.

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

Current Employee – been working at W.L. Gore full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – The Culture and most of its principles, Flexibility in commitment, hours, & locations, Peer rankings for contribution (when it works effectively), Associate Stock,

Cons – Lower pay vs comps, secretive contribution and compensation process, varying definition of roles (Particularly leadership)

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at W.L. Gore full-time for more than a year

Pros – -If you're in leadership you'll do great Colonel.
-Free leftover donuts in the kitchen. Sometimes.
-Some associates have a flexible work schedule.
-Good pay for those in leadership, or those who negotiate well coming from another company.

Cons – -Extremely poor compensation compared to other medical companies, especially for the rank and file employees doing the day to day work.

-Lackluster vacation time benefits for new hires or those who negotiate poorly with HR.

-You signed the non-compete agreement, which is designed to intimidate all Gore associates into working there forever. The way the agreement is worded, associates can never leave for another medical company, even if you have no proprietary knowledge.

-Lack of innovation. The business strategy is play it safe, be last to market with new devices.

-Minimal opportunity for advancement, unless you're already in a high-visibility role.

-Many associates get minimal or even no pay increases from one year to the next. The ranking system for compensation does not work.

-The mythical culture is non-existent. How this company keeps getting ranked as one of the "Best Companies" is a mystery.

-Hierarchical command structure good ol' boys club with little opportunity to provide input.

-As others have mentioned, the corporate culture is extremely secretive and intolerant.

-"Leadership" uses HR as its secret police to keep associates in line. The phrase "No Longer With Gore" is very popular around here. Everyone who has been here more than a year or so knows that translates to "He/she was secretly called into HR for unknown reasons and fired".

Advice to Senior Management – Leadership (Management) doesn't take advice from non-leaders.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend