General Motors

Great benefits and abundant vacation time.

Each department is very different, and the personality of the department you are in can offer completely different experiences. Generally, the more pleasant and supportive departments are those that are highly involved in R&D / analysis. From my experience, the management of those groups tends to lean more progressive and empowers team members to grow and be innovative.

It's really important to meet different managers within the company, and it's pretty easy to do that. If you are a friendly person, people are often eager to help you learn new skills or give you opportunities to try out a field that you are interested in, even if you have no prior experience with it.

You are required to use 4 of your "personal vacation days" during the first week of July, which they don't really tell you until your new hire orientation. Though you still end up with above-average vacation time.

401k matching vests after 3 years.

Sometimes very old-fashioned thinking.

There are great managers, and there are a few genuinely mean ones who remain even with low annual reviews from their team. There are groups that can give off the attitude of "You haven't been here long enough to be important enough for me to listen to any of your ideas," which can be really discouraging and turn people off to the company.

Make a stronger effort to modernize management and encourage flexible work in groups that are stuck with a traditional mentality. Working from home should be encouraged more, especially without the distractions of the movement towards "open office".

Allow people to transition to other departments without having to depend fully on their manager giving them permission. This is much easier with the rotational program for recent college grads, but it can be difficult sometimes for people outside of rotations to move out of departments that tend to struggle with recruiting new people.

Diffuse pressure within the company for blind loyalty to our own products, since being open-minded about competition is a good way for us to get better.

Make employee car discounts better.

Stop cannibalizing product lines.