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    Cummins Reviews

    Updated June 22, 2017
    1,975 reviews

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    Full-time Part-time
    3.7
    Star Star Star Star Star
    Rating Trends Rating Trends
    Recommend to a friend
    Approve of CEO
    Cummins Chairman and CEO Tom Linebarger
    Tom Linebarger
    812 Ratings

    1,975 Employee Reviews

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    Pros
    Cons

    • The work-life balance can often tip to the work side more (in 67 reviews)

    • Small town, nearest airport is about an hour away (in 70 reviews)

    More Pros and Cons

    1. "Great place to work for motivated self starters"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Health & Safety Professional in Minneapolis, MN
      Former Employee - Health & Safety Professional in Minneapolis, MN
      Recommends
      Neutral Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I worked at Cummins full-time (More than 3 years)

      Pros

      Company values and is built with a lot of diversity. There are many wonderful and incredibly talented people to work with.

      Cons

      As with many large global matrixed organizations, decision making can be slow and bureaucratic.

    2. Helpful (3)

      "Ok - but nasty below the surface"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Associate Director in Columbus, IN
      Former Employee - Associate Director in Columbus, IN
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I worked at Cummins full-time (More than 5 years)

      Pros

      Easy to work there, low expectations, anyone who is moderately good is a "star performer".

      Flexible schedule - management doesn't keep track. Most people work 9 to 4:30.

      No travel - except for in specific very high level roles, but this is damaging to some customer facing and product management roles.

      Cons

      You can't get in front of your customers. Product managers are expected to do all of their work from the office, and therefore are unable to really see what their customers need or how they use the product.

      A lot of lazy people work at Cummins - because it is nearly impossible to get fired for mediocre performance. So - you have a few "A" players, very very few, and a lot of people who want a job for life and do hardly anything at all. It's a frustrating environment for "top talent" which is why they leave in droves every single year.
      Cummins also prides itself on paying just below median - which also attracts middle level talent. I mean, who stays somewhere, when you are practically guaranteed a higher salary somewhere else. As a manager you are expected to "work with" people who are not performing - which leads you, as a manager, to convince other managers to higher them, thus continuing the cycle.

      Very high turnover, due to high performers and low performers both, means that there is no continuity in jobs or management. I had a new boss every 6 months, along with their expectation for my role.

      HR runs the company - employees are existing in an environment where they are terrified to say anything to anyone. It's like a stasi state you are encouraged to "report others anonymously" for "coaching".

      Also, the hiring of employees on visas is an intentional tactic to keep wages very low. People are hired on visas, when there ARE qualified Americans, I was told to "ignore that fact" and just process people through the system in order to increase diversity numbers. When choosing between 2 candidates you are supposed to hire the "diverse" candidate even if they are substituting for an American worker.

       Indian tech workers are sequestered in a windowless building in Columbus - but there are hundreds of them from outsourcing companies.

      3. Join the Cummins team
      See Our Latest Jobs

    3. "Control Engineer - Specialist"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Control Engineer - Specialist in Columbus, IN
      Current Employee - Control Engineer - Specialist in Columbus, IN
      Recommends
      Neutral Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I have been working at Cummins full-time (More than 5 years)

      Pros

      very diversified company, work life balance

      Cons

      conservative, sometimes slow, political, inflexible, too many managers

    4. "Cummins"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Crossfunctional Associate in Columbus, IN
      Current Employee - Crossfunctional Associate in Columbus, IN
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Cummins full-time (More than 8 years)

      Pros

      Good Benefits, Pay, and very stress free. Attitude is pretty high here. Current role is very stress free.

      Cons

      Large Company. Cafeteria is too expensive, no tool account.

      Advice to Management

      Restore a tool account for R&D employees.

    5. "Tableau Developer"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      Current Employee - Senior Tableau Developer in Columbus, IN
      Current Employee - Senior Tableau Developer in Columbus, IN

      I have been working at Cummins (More than a year)

      Pros

      very easy to apply and search. Can see many opportunities that suit the profile. Flexible Filters.

      Cons

      It's not that comfortable to contract positions that to register for every company. So, It would be better if we can apply directly without registering.

    6. Helpful (1)

      "committed"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - SENIORCOMMUNIC AT IONSSPECIALIST in Columbus, IN
      Current Employee - SENIORCOMMUNIC AT IONSSPECIALIST in Columbus, IN
      Recommends
      Positive Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Cummins (More than a year)

      Pros

      passionate employees
      freedom of work
      high responsibility

      Cons

      industrial locations
      inconsistent ideals and norms across different sites

      Advice to Management

      Great company to work for, remain flexible and passionate employees will surprise you - don't get stuck in the past

    7. "Sr SC Analyst"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Current Employee - Senior Supply Chain Analyst and Supply Chain Analyst in Columbus, IN
      Current Employee - Senior Supply Chain Analyst and Supply Chain Analyst in Columbus, IN
      Recommends
      Neutral Outlook
      Approves of CEO

      I have been working at Cummins full-time (More than 5 years)

      Pros

      1. Good diversity
      2. Strong ethics
      3. Global work experience
      4. Good benefit

      Cons

      1. Too many layers, too many reviews
      2. Things not moving fast enough
      3. Does not have good data integrity, hard to do accurate analysis, spend lots of time connecting data from different sources and clean them up

      Advice to Management

      Having good data is a key step in analyzing the business problems/challenges and making improvements. If we can upgrade to better data systems it would save lots of tedious labor work and make a lot of good changes happen

    8. Helpful (5)

      "Disappointing"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee in Columbus, IN
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee in Columbus, IN
      Doesn't Recommend
      Negative Outlook
      No opinion of CEO

      I worked at Cummins full-time (More than 3 years)

      Pros

      If you work at headquarters, then you live in Pawnee, IN....

      The work life balance at Cummins is decent (if you aren't in a plant). If you are still at work at 5pm, then you are one of the last people in the office to leave.

      Bonuses are based on performance reviews, and it is surprisingly easy to be above average.

      They have demoted the role of Six Sigma in the business. To someone that is a huge proponent of process improvement that shouldn't be a pro, but the Six Sigma program that Cummins had in place was laughable. It encouraged faulty analysis and meaningless projects that reported huge savings with no noticeable financial impact. In the past it was merely a hoop to jump through to enable promotion.

      Cons

      Innovation is purposefully painful at Cummins. If you are interested in your career accomplishing something, then I wouldn't recommend working here. I realize that this sounds like an angry former employee, but looking back it was insane how difficult meaningless things were to change. This is evident by the amount of workarounds that exist at the company. There is a joke that Cummins is run by Excel, and that is because critical systems and analysis is done in excel, because none of the corporate systems are capable. Cummins is incentivized by its stock holders to keep doing what they are doing. They are risk-adverse and show it in every decision.

      A few common sayings at Cummins that make me laugh:

      Cummins is a supplier of diesel engines to companies that make diesel engines. 9 out of the top 10 customers make their own diesel engines. Translation - Cummins is in a horrible competitive environment. This, along with macro-economic trends, make layoffs and down-sizing a common occurrence (basically every 4-5 years).

      Cummins new engines are environmentally friendly. They are so clean that in some places in the U.S. (usually the claim is L.A.) the air coming out of the engine is cleaner than the area going in. They clean the air. Translation - In every other place in the U.S. the air coming out of the engines is dirtier than the air going in... Being better than the past is not itself an accomplishment worthy of praise.

      At Cummins most people move positions about every 2 years, so you can try out a bunch of different positions to find what you like. Translation - Most people don't like what they are doing, and are constantly looking for something that they will enjoy at the company. These moves are mostly lateral.

      Advice to Management

      1. Promote leadership - Managers who match the risk-adverse culture of Cummins are promoted. Make promotion a result of actually proving leadership instead of just job duration. It seems if anyone stayed at the job longer than 3 years, then they were promoted, because everyone else moved positions.

      2. Understand diversity - Management seems to have a perverse idea of the meaning of diversity. The homogeneity of ideas and behavior at Cummins is a product of a diversity initiative that is focused on encouraging diversity, but then upon hire, stifling any heterogeneity with standards and procedures.

      3. Invest in IT - It was painful to see critical systems in text-based operating systems. The lack of investment in IT infrastructure was difficult to understand.

    9. Helpful (3)

      "Not for long term"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Software Engineering Team Lead in Columbus, IN
      Former Employee - Software Engineering Team Lead in Columbus, IN
      Doesn't Recommend
      Neutral Outlook
      Disapproves of CEO

      I worked at Cummins full-time (More than 10 years)

      Pros

      Columbus is a smaller town but is geographically close to many larger areas (Indianapolis and Louisville). Decent cost of living except in housing and an outstanding school system for employees with school aged children. Pay is decent for the area and coworkers are friendly and easy with which to work.

      Cons

      Cummins forced ranking system feeds a layoff cycle every 3-4 years that has gutted many employees over the years that were dedicated to the company and truly cared about the product. Job performance is only a small part of the rating system and even a high performing employee can be escorted out if not in the right clique at the right time. This has caused a revolving door of new employees replacing those with subject matter expertise and previous solutions having to be revisited over and over because the depth of knowledge has been lost.

      Advice to Management

      Kill forced ranking and retain those workers that are dedicated to the long term success of the company.

    10. Helpful (4)

      "Everyone has the leader title but almost no one is a leader"

      Star Star Star Star Star
      • Work/Life Balance
      • Culture & Values
      • Career Opportunities
      • Comp & Benefits
      • Senior Management
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee in Columbus, IN
      Former Employee - Anonymous Employee in Columbus, IN
      Doesn't Recommend
      Negative Outlook
      Disapproves of CEO

      I worked at Cummins full-time (More than 3 years)

      Pros

      - low cost of living
      - diversity among employees
      - sponsor visa for international employees
      - close community

      Cons

      - since it is in middle of nowhere in Indiana, people are somewhat ignorant
      - everyone has a leader title that doesn't mean much, whenever someone wants to get a promotion but are not good enough to go to the next level, they will get a leader at the end of their title
      - low increments - used to be 5% increase for lateral move and 7% increase if you change your title unless you are above Salary grade 9 - between a senior mgr or director level, heard they removed the 5% increment for lateral move
      - terrible benefits
      - bad managers get away with terrible treatments to their staff since there are no opportunities else where

      Advice to Management

      - remove the "leader" title, leaders are earned not given

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