General Electric

Some great peers to work with.

Ability to spend entire career at GE.

GE is too big. Too impersonal.

HR is corrupt. HR has way too much control over management. The 'R' in HR should be changed to 'C' for 'control'. They are certainly not a resource.

The head of HR for a large US Corp (a relative of mine) once told me that GE (and most big companies') HR's two main goals: 1) Reduce cost. 2) Push the envelope (salary, tough metrics, etc.) with employees just enough without getting sued.

Nepotism runs rampant; people are in positions they don't belong in. It's like a cancer that is spreading.

No use of the 360 review system; it exists but is not used.

Way too much turnover of positions; people move up before they are ready or laterally into a position they shouldn't be in because they never performed it themselves.

Most managers have never held the same role as their direct reports. How can you lead people if you have not done the job yourself?

GE hires many veterans. In the military, a leader must know how to do the job above them and below them. Not at GE. I've seen many ex-military leave GE, frustrated, after a short while because the style and structure of management is so upside down.

Internal evaluation system is abused by HR. Some have described it as fuzzy. I would equate it with quicksand. No matter what you do, only negativity prevails, and it's used as leverage against your salary action or rating (rack and stack).

HR requires managers to post two things you must improve upon every year. Anything can be written by a manager, and once it's in the system, it is there for perpetuity, even if comments are completely wrong and you post a rebuttal with your side of the story. Only the 'negative' comments carry on into view of future hiring managers; the rebuttal comments by the employee do not.

An employee's only recourse is to never acknowledge (checking a box) that you held a discussion with your manager. Checking that box says you agree with whatever they wrote in their assessment.

Well, there is the option of hiring outside legal counsel to correct this, but that is highly discouraged. In fact, there is an agreement you acknowledge (a checkbox on a website, basically) that says you cannot hire legal counsel for employment disputes; you have to use one of HR's Ombudsmen (an HR manager from some other department). They'll basically rule for HR and not for you just about 100% of the time.

As for the fuzzy metrics, that is a game played by HR, and they are masters of bait-and-switch and slight of hand.

There is no clear structure in the leadership chain; too many 'dotted' line managers.

Tons of backstabbing.

Merit should dictate who gets what jobs. More carrot and less stick.