General Electric

Well, the outside view of GE is quite well known to most people. Everyone knows that GE was developed by inventor Thomas Edison and was the first organization to manufacture the light bulb, and so on, blah, blah, blah.

However, what a prospective employee will want to know is the inside view of GE, i.e., what it is like to work in the organization. As a current employee of GE, I hope to provide you with this insight.

In the first paragraph, I will describe the outside view of GE, for those of you few people who are hearing about GE for the first time, so that you can get a general picture of the organization you are looking at. Then, in subsequent paragraphs, I will give you the insider's view of GE, based on my own experiences, experiences of friends and colleagues, and the corporate grapevine.

The General Electric Company, or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in the State of New York. In 2010, Forbes magazine ranked GE as the world's second largest company, based on some kind of formula that compared the total sales, profits, assets, and market value of several multinational companies.

GE has 304,000 employees around the world and is definitely one of the most giant companies in the world and a force to be reckoned with.

Okay, now here is the viewpoint from the employee's point of view. The good things are:

• Flexible work timings
• Weekends off
• Subsidized food
• Free evening snacks
• 20 days available leave (including sick leave)
• Availability of some good technical talent

Since everybody who has purchased a light bulb has heard about GE, it is also something that will be noticed on your resume. Also, it follows Six Sigma quality standards, and so you will be exposed to the most stringent quality practices. Reasonable good training is offered (of course, your manager has to be proactive about recommending you for it) on both technical and quality issues. Good exposure to practices in a giant engineering company.

Okay, though I am running out of time, I know that prospective employees will also want to know what the cons are, so I will give a brief description of that as well in the next section.

Well, I am really running out of time, but I will definitely not abandon the reader and will touch upon the main important points which a prospective employee will have to keep in mind and be alert about.

I have observed a poor quality of the HR and the middle-level managers as compared to the presence of some good technical talent. As a consequence, there is not much respect for the technical talent, which has resulted in the technical talent being treated more as labor, rather than as talent.

If you are a technical talent, you will have to reconcile with some of the arrogant and negligent behavior of HR and middle-level managers; the only other alternative being to leave the organization.

I have observed over the past year a very sizable attrition of the best technical 'icons' in the organization.

Though the reasons why people leave the organization are never publicized and not known except to a few close friends, there is also a very good indication of some hire-and-fire practices being in place.

It is quite well known from the grapevine that a sizable percentage of people leave the organization on performance grounds. Apart from these, people can also be asked to leave based on suspicion of their commitment to the company (i.e., suspicion that they are looking for other jobs).

People can also be asked to leave if it is believed that they are too well-qualified and hence difficult to retain, hence not likely to become a long-term asset.

As a result of these factors, I would say that overall, the job security is not very secure in this organization, especially when you compare it with other Indian organizations.

Well, these are the things you have to look out for if you are trying to decide on joining or are considering joining the organization.

Well, I hope that I have been of help in this article, and I do hope that you are able to weigh the pros and cons and make a good decision.

Good luck!

Big X's: HR quality, middle management quality.

Big Y: High quality technical talent.

Moral of the story: Improve the quality of the HR and middle level managers if you want to hire, utilize, and retain the best technical talent!