Dr. JV schreef op 16 november 2022 10:07:
This is a review about working environment within Philips Drachten, not about the products, which are (still) very good, at least for now.
The organisation is very immature with people preferring to gossip behind your back and try to push you out of projects and meetings rather than talk to you directly about your (perceived) differences. The company is clearly run by either incompetent and apathetic management or alternatively management who is actively trying to run the company out of business.
The working environment is best described as an airport terminal rather than an office. You get a random desk somewhere in the middle of a big room with people walking around and sometimes shouting or having coffee meeting and laughing behind you and watching videos out loud. Okay if all you have to do is check some emails and update your calendar but not for any kind of real intellectual work. They have good coffee though so perhaps an idea is to just drink the coffee and browse the net, which seems to be what a lot of people do there. This is fine for lazy people who like to get paid to drink coffee and sit somewhere but not really a challenging and stimulating environment. The challenge is perhaps in having to deal with the childish people working there.
The company prides itself internally with diversity and innovation yet it is incapable of handling either. Working style and procedures are rigid and old fashioned and people tend to have a herd mentality. If you are different with educational background than the majority or have different working and thinking style it is perceived as negative and that you must adapt to the inside the box way of working and thinking which is quite opposite to environment for innovation. Intellectual and personality diversity is not tolerated. This is interesting because the company is trying to appear that they do by spending money and time on expensive training programs to determine every person’s working and thinking style yet they do not use these results at all. This is an excellent example of fluffy ideas that fall short of execution.
Projects are constantly delayed due to extremely unrealistic ideas of time and deadlines that do not take into account any realism and what ifs or indeed past experience. However every time a project is delayed it is a surprise for everyone and the response is to make again the exact same unrealistic plans. There does not appear to be much thinking or learning involved. They are however very quick to try to find someone in the team (who does not have herd mentality) to blame for this and in absence of such they blame each other. It is often a theatre, when one can sit back and enjoy it with some distance (perhaps with the good coffee that is provided).
When the company has financial problems the result is not to accept lower profits or cut the salaries of executives but to cut innovation projects and fire some people. This insures that the innovation department is in a constant flux of new hire and fire and struggles to retain and build knowledge. It also ensures that in a few years there will not be many new developments or different products, which means the problem with the competition, will be even bigger. It also means that despite financial problems on the balance sheet the company appears to be making profit, so the stock price goes up instead of down, which in effect means lying to investors and stealing they’re money. On top of that to support this scheme large portion of the hires are on temp contracts via agencies and they get rid of them easily. Basically, it is a very socially irresponsible company.
The mid and low lever managers have limited concept of leadership and management and all they do is say some fluffy corporate jargon about excited work together at weekly meetings. They often talk big about how they disagree with the way the company is being run but do not try to do anything about it as they are clearly scared of senior management. When faced with non-standard situations or employees they have no idea how to respond.
Bron: Google maps