Tesla Employee Reviews about "work hours"

Pros

The mission is the reason people work here. You feel not only purposeful in the group effort to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy, but also cool being associated with such a technologically savvy and groundbreaking product that works well and is beloved by the masses.

Cons

The challenging work life balance makes this place a nightmare, especially for women with children. There was a certainly a pressure to be 'on-call' at all hours of the day, especially in a remote environment. Most individuals had their personal phones converted to accept work emails so they could keep up after hours. The late-night emailing is cumbersome and burdensome for those with a family. Leaders often refer to the culture of Tesla as a meritocracy - which sounds like a good thing (the hardest working people get the biggest reward) however that culture comes with a double edged sword. This concept really only benefits people who are young and single and willing to work longer hours and constantly say yes. If you're a yes-man or an 'idea-man' you will get promoted, even with no experience managing people. There is a huge amount of turnover in all departments. The turnover massively hurts team morale and work life balance suffers because of it. Typically if someone resigns, Tesla asks them to leave immediately without any reasonable time to help find a replacement, and a whole team takes over their work until they can hire someone. Since Tesla is frugal, they will often promote someone from a lower level and ask them to do both their current job and their bosses job, with not enough compensation and not enough training or experience to succeed. Hard-working and talented people managers have left this company in droves over the last few years because the pace is relentless, executive leadership will not take criticism or feedback and HR cannot solve problems fast enough.

Pros

Great company love their mission statement. I like the hours in the work and the pay is very fair for Sparks Nevada.

Cons

If you are a Gen X'er you have got to change the way you think to survive there. You must brown nose to get ahead, they like to promote Millennials to lead positions with zero management experience that happen to have a loud speaking voice.

Pros

Interesting people, fast changing environment, friendly atmosphere, "green" company

Cons

Work-life balance is not really good because you have to work long hours and sometiems weekends

Pros

- amazing stock options and benefits. You will pay little to nothing for healthcare. - no commission which gives you cushion if you personally have a bad sales week/month - looks amazing on a resume and great sales/customer service experience - great team mentality and collaboration at multiple locations (but sometimes can feel more like trauma bonding) - feel good about what you're selling/great products - Overall I felt like store and regional leadership listened to the suggestions of the "troops on the ground" although sometimes they were limited in what they could do

Cons

- low hourly pay compared to other full time jobs of the same caliber - The schedule is terrible. Very retail heavy and you will work basically every weekend and holiday for long hours. There is very little PTO allowed around holidays because of this. - takes a long time to actually reap the benefits of your stock options - company consistently changes policies, prices, products, and expects the sales staff to be the first line of defense when the customers complain. There is no customer service team to send them to so sometimes it can suck when you've built great rapport with a customer and have to drop a bomb on them last minute. - It seems like they are moving towards merging service and sales roles into one. - not a lot of room to move up (only 1 store leader, 1 assistant manager position per store and goes to people that have been with the company for 3-4 years). Merit 'raises' are pretty low and only happen once a year

Pros

- Benefits - Long days off because you work 12 hours a day and only work 3 or 4 times a week.

Cons

- Physically demanding - long hours of work

Pros

- Insurance benefits (health, life, etc.) and stock compensation are highly competitive compared to other employers. - Ability to make an impact is what keeps folks here. Everyone is excited for the mission and deeply engaged in Tesla's products. - Tesla is a very dynamic place to be, where you can add value in a very concentrated amount of time. - Tesla will give you the opportunity to work on something in which you are not an expert, as Tesla values soft skills vs. hard knowledge.

Cons

- Salary is at or slightly below average. Annual bonuses barely account for inflation. Equity grants are the main form of compensation. - Job insecurity is a constant. Over the three years I worked at Tesla, I witnessed about 6 rounds of layoffs. This has a negative impact on morale and everyone always has one foot out the door in preparation of being let go. - Tesla does not value individual knowledge or expertise. Tesla is the only company I've worked at where it is acceptable to announce on a Wednesday that you are leaving the company and then be gone by Friday. There is no effort to transition knowledge or roles, leaving to inefficiencies and knowledge gaps. - High attrition due to constant layoffs creates an unstable environment in which management/senior leadership is constantly changing, strategy is changing and knowledge is lost. - Tesla is a VERY demanding company. There is almost an expectation for employees to avoid incurring expenses and therefore employees will often pay for business expenses out of pocket. You will be expected to work long hours and be flexible to do so especially at every end of quarter. Due to this level of demand, Tesla is not a supportive place for parents or those with significant personal demands. - Because everyone is overworked, it is difficult to get follow-through from other teams and constant follow-up is required. - 80% of Tesla's workforce is under 35. While this creates many opportunities for those early in their career, there is often a lack of functional expertise and professional maturity. - Elon has final say on everything and will not be challenged by others, including his direct reports, for fear of losing their jobs. - Due to constant attrition, people managers and leaders are regularly purged. This creates an environment in which employees are rewarded for being average performers for fear of being promoted and then eventually fired. Many people who have remained at Tesla in the long term (i.e. 7-10 years) have done so by flying under the radar and avoiding visibility, creating a perverse incentive for mediocrity. - Many departments are male dominated and have a 'bro' culture, with few women at the Senior Manager level and above. There are few people of color at the Senior Manager level and above. There is a lack of diversity within leadership and a lack of effort to cultivate and retain a diverse pipeline of leadership talent. Diversity is not integrated into the company culture as demonstrated by the radio silence from senior leadership this year (aside from the sole Black executive). - Career growth is not well tracked or managed. There was a period of 1.5 years where no formal performance reviews (or salary increases) were conducted. Promotions and compensation are HIGHLY dependent on the manager. It is not uncommon for someone to be underpaid or not receive a promotion for years because a manager is more focused on managing their personal job security vs. advocating for the team.

Pros

Hard working community of brilliant engineers, designers, manufacturing, sales, etc. Decent PTO. Sense of commitment and passion is very high. The product is truly groundbreaking.

Cons

Very hard to get a promotion. Expectation is to work long hours and sacrifice large amounts of your personal life to achieve their goals. Work/life balance is very lopsided. Parking is a nightmare.

Pros

Everyone is like minded and easy to get along with, Standard working hours and no weekend work as of yet (Possibility in the future) Excellent training facilities, Ability to travel the world to assist in other service centres.

Cons

Very few locations around the UK to work. Things don't happen as fast as they should there are managers for managers and it takes a while for anything to get actioned at the chain is too long.

Pros

They have taken care of me and I was dealt with very professionally since my first day of interview. They flew me down for an interview, then offered me the job and had me relocated from Boston to the Bay Area. This whole process was just very smooth. Fast forward, its been one year with Tesla and I had an amazing experience so far. What I absolutely love about Tesla is there is no I, its always a WE. The culture is so team oriented, everyone from upper managed to operator jumps in to make things happen and solve critical issues. The work is fast paced but as I said everyone jumps in so everything feels like a breeze. The company invests a lot in you, in terms training and skills. I went to so many technical training and its all paid for. Plus you are constantly learning new things everyday from people and just basically being there. So its a good place to start for young people. Have some good benefits. You get bonus stocks but that also depends on how the company doing. Health care is good too, the basic is all paid for. Overall we are very fast paced, team oriented, goal oriented, fast decision making aggressive people who will go above and beyond to get things done!

Cons

Work life balance: You have to put in the hours and go above and beyond that sometimes. Everyone does it so it doesn't feel too bad. If you decide to work for Tesla, be ready to work! Also, they lay off people so if you are not putting any value, you are gonna get booted. I personally like to work out and be active and gym is not that great here. Not to mention, no recreation center like you would expect in any other bay area tech company. Benefits and salaries are okay, definitely not as great as other tech companies in the Bay area.

Pros

Gets bills paid and benefits are nice

Cons

Too many hours work weekends commute on top of it and get treated like a number without any consideration