How is management perceived at Keyence?

No pros, maybe if you cant land any other company, at least it’s a salary.

Bad culture, bad pay, bad metrics, sales middle managers and managers are micromanagers.

Good salary and bonuses Extensive training at the beginning

Toxic japanese work culture - super hierarchical, overtime is a standard (kind of expected from you), constant micromanagement, you are never good enough for the managers, a lot of stress, Huge open space office with a depressing 90s design, The work system is so toxic that everybody is trying to find a workaround - faking data, being friends with the right people etc. Very bad relations between departments, constant negative commenting and blaming Requires a lot of non-sense travelling - normalizes having 50+ flights a year for 1-3 days business trips.

Good money on the face of it

Absolutely horrific work life balance. The amount of hours you put in completely undermines the money you earn. Toxic environment there is absolutely no diversity. Travel to meetings at Stockley Park is mandatory and done on your time, regardless of which office you’re in. Think you can finish early to catch a flight home, think again. You must be in the office at 8:30am even if you’ve driven 5 hours from Newcastle/Scotland/Wales/Manchester/East coast/ flown in from Ireland. You must be visiting customers during working hours (8:30-5:15) and you drive home in your own time. Absolutely no leniency for personal circumstances. You must keep high KPIs regardless of holiday (over achieve on visits to make up for the annual leave you’re about to take which will pull your average down) The management structure is constantly crumbling in on itself, middle management leave and the gap never gets filled so it’s down to us to figure things out and fend for ourselves HR and management are unqualified to deal with anything outside daily business and offer no solid support past a bit of superficial empathy

Czys aggressively hires directly out of college and does a fantastic job of training and mentoring new hires in their first job. There’s also a great safety net for new hires or for those who are currently struggling during a specific quarter. Keyence is one of the worlds largest companies, and that comes an insane amount of resources that help me in my role every single day whether that is, technical, or administrative support. About 70% of Khan’s products are also industry first so it is a really cool company to work for if you want to be on the groundbreaking side of manufacturing technology.

Like every company, There is a large below management culture, who have been there for an extended amount of time. I think most are incredibly good, but there is a very stiff response to when change is proposed and no matter larger small it will most likely be shot down.

Great products, good customer base

Can be stressful on middle management with the amount of work of both selling in your individual territory and managing a team

Internal Promotion Only is nice. If you get lucky and are placed in a division with kind, helpful management that will invest time to coach you and advocate on your behalf you got it made.

Management can be good in some teams but, the “QMS” division is full of awful management. They have tunnel vision on an employees metrics and don’t account for other aspects or skills you bring to the table. Worst part is they pick and choose what metrics they care about. For example, you can be #1 in your division for “outreach” but they don’t care if you struggle with something else, and on top of all that some management will not coach you on what you struggle with.

The benefits are good, nothing else is

Company culture sucks, they encourage competition more than necessary, payment sucks unless you’re in sales, they sell to weapons manufacturers assisting in genocide, path to management is made for bullies to rise up.

This is a fantastic job either out of school or first field sales job. The training in Chicago is 6-10 weeks depending on the product line you sell. It prepares you really well if you work hard in training to be able to confidently sell the product line your in and company as whole. The pay is solid for an entry level position. Even if you don't hit your numbers you will still bring home a good amount. If you are good worker not even the hardest worker your job security is amazing. They only let go of people if they are just lazy. There is also a clear path for promotions and progression. You got solid autonomy because you are on the road 3 days a week. Overall it's a good job and you can be there for a long time with solid security and good paycheck.

KPIs are the name of the game. Every little thing is tracked and at times the process they want you to stay with can be detrimental to the sale. However they have a proven process and system that works so trusting it is just fine, just know you will have to do things like make cold calls when you could be doing something more productive or booking sales calls with customers just to check a box when it's not beneficial to anyone. But if you crush KPIs you will get promoted and be rewarded. The other biggest thing is after about 5-7 years there if you can't get a management position, your pay and ability to move up flattens out. Not a ton of people work there in their past their mid 30s unless their in management.

Decent pay, hybrid work environment for full time employees, nice office and high quality equipment

Secretive, smoke-filled room management style, very "set in their ways" and obtuse. Japanese culture runs wild here, with a very strict dress code (no jeans, no shoes other than loafers, no shirts other than plain dress shirts) that is enforced by a dedicated team of watchdogs who look for people to report to management for violations. Management does not look for coaching opportunities - if you don't "fit in", you will be fired regardless of performance.

Internal Promotion Only is nice. If you get lucky and are placed in a division with kind, helpful management that will invest time to coach you and advocate on your behalf you got it made.

Management can be good in some teams but, the “QMS” division is full of awful management. They have tunnel vision on an employees metrics and don’t account for other aspects or skills you bring to the table. Worst part is they pick and choose what metrics they care about. For example, you can be #1 in your division for “outreach” but they don’t care if you struggle with something else, and on top of all that some management will not coach you on what you struggle with.