Fender Musical Instruments Reviews

Cons

Hollywood is weird. Other departments seem turbulent. Sometimes there are questionable decisions made by leadership.

Cons

Poor management, high turnover rate

Cons

Industry is slow growing, though Fender continues to build share.

Cons

Leadership team at the C level creates a toxic, non-inclusive , high attrition/turnover rate across all departments. Referrals from the Board should not dictate keeping people at the top who have leadership coaches and spend company money on toxic Execs.

Cons

HR Dept is a joke. Managers are skewed and differ greatly in their treatment of employees creating an unfair and unbalanced environment.

Cons

Too many new people, seems to have had staffing issues

Cons

For a relatively small company, things can move very slowly at times.

Cons

None of this is new and echoes a number of the previous comments posted on this site:
• Turnover is high. Morale is not. It’s hard to imagine its gone unnoticed so one would have to assume that the C-suite and HR are somehow fine with the level of dysfunction on open display.
• I agree with a recent comment that there is definitely some targeted bullying from management that HR and other leadership is aware of, but choose to turn a blind eye to. And I think “bullying” is the right word for it. Of course people lose their jobs from time to time for legitimate concerns, but I saw management ostracize, scapegoat and drill people out of their jobs for “reasons”, which at times meant little more than having a difference of opinion or speaking up about something they were concerned about. And nearly as troubling, this shadowy process seemed to take the place of communication between management and their direct reports. Vanishing co-workers were so frequent you couldn’t help but feel that people had learned that if they wanted to keep their jobs they needed to keep their heads down and their mouths shut. Even some managers seemed to take this “no comment” approach rather than deal with difficult peers or confront senior management, which led to teams clamming up into silos, which led to lots of communication difficulties. The good will of the brand and enthusiasm that people brought into their jobs often curdled quickly. Some people excitedly moved to LA from other parts of the country for a job at Fender only to start looking for another job within weeks of arriving. Others were pointlessly bounced from manager to manager with little or no direction. It was oppressive and you could feel it.
• It is cliquish. I found the subordinate members of these cliques to be super nice people even though I received warnings from multiple corners in my first weeks about the dangers of trusting others in the company.
• There’s an unfortunate and unnecessary enmity between “New” Fender (digital and marketing primarily in Hollywood) and “Old” Fender (primarily in Scottsdale).
• It’s no secret that the guitar market isn’t especially healthy. One would think that fostering and harnessing the enthusiasm and creative energy of the employees could lead to products or innovations that might help keep the lights on over time. Unfortunately that’s not the kind of environment I feel I witnessed.

Cons

Felt bored sometimes due to lack of weekly tasks

Cons

For many years there were things that set Fender apart from corporations in other industries. There was a sense that, everyone pretty much knew each other. Most of us were pulling in the same direction. There's a lot of change, like in any industry, and it's been much more challenging to hold on to those virtues that made us (now them) the best. Shifting markets, rising costs, management decisions, (moving to a much more expensive HQ). There is mostly downside to casting aside long-time employees, which has inarguably been happening at higher velocity of late. New people mistake guidance from the veterans as defensiveness. Although, I would rule out a healthy dose of that as well. There is a reason Fender was sitting at the top of this industry. A reason the products have been so good, and the dealers and customers have hung in there. There were/are people there that were bleeding Fender Red. With that, much (not all) of the new management brought in from "other industries" have been bleeding that Fender Red out of all of us (now them).