Ricoh reviews

Ricoh is run by incompetent executives, who after five years of trying to realign the company after merging with IKON have failed completely. The best thing Ricoh could do would be to eliminate a third of the management above the level of branch manager. Including the CEO. Branch Managers are constantly being called away from helping the sales team to submit reports or attend endless teleconferences. The sales staff is kept away from doing the job they were hired to do by the insufferable stress of dealing with the countless non-productive activities foisted upon them by management. Ricoh is trying to position itself as a full service provider of network and information management services. Yet it has failed to hire enough qualified people to enable these services to be smoothly implemented or to support the activities of the sales reps. The market is there and we find the opportunities, but the “specialist” are so slow to respond that often the opportunity to sell is lost. This is especially disheartening because so much of the commission plan is tied to selling services. The fundamental problem is that Ricoh has too many managers and not enough support personnel. They have eliminated the local administrative staff, which has alienated customers and added so much workload to sales reps that it is often impossible to leave the office due to the countless paperwork issues. Ricoh’s bureaucracy is so massive that a sale that used to take a week to complete now can be expected to take a minimum of two to three weeks or longer. Getting paid? Plan on another month or two (and in some cases a year). Commissions have been steadily reduced and the plan is so complicated there is little or no real understanding within the company of how reps are to be paid. And don’t count on the commission being right when you get paid. Salaries have been reduced to below what they were in the early nineties and the prospect of making it up in commissions is virtually impossible. In my office, incomes have dropped around 40% over the past four years. Good sales reps don’t stay around and those who do have for the most part lost their motivation.

• The problem is top management, unethical and with personal agendas • An employee here can not complaint, should not voice an honest opinion or say the truth; otherwise will be fired • Too many bosses, few non-managers to support all the bosses’ requests. • Seldom hire from within. Instead, they bring “Over-qualified” (on paper only) people from outside. It seems the new policy says: “Let’s forget about the loyal people who have pushed the company to where we are now” • Closed door policy. Very rigid formal political structure and secretive culture. They even divided the office. Now high level executives are separate from regular employees. • Seniority is taken into account only when assigning cubicles to employees. The oldest in the company gets the window! For promotions is another story. • Destructive criticism from the president. Employees that really care about the company feel discouraged by his remarks. President does not care much about people. Never approaches employees. Just waves and says Hola, hola! • With very few exceptions every year everyone knows who will be “selected individuals” for the next trip: The favorites • Who you know, instead of what you know, will move you up. If a couple of influential VP's and the president like you, then you’re all set. • Low morale. No employee recognition program in place. Recognition is just a “Thank you”. Low morale among employees. Promotions are based on how much you relate to top management. Hard work, talent, and dedication seldom get you ahead in here, unless your friend is.... • Lately the company has put emphasis on bringing new people with new ideas to the company. Why don’t they begin with top management first? Some of them with near 30 years in the company, and most people still wonders why we were still stuck with Excel. • They have been utilizing employees for jobs not related to their specific functions to save money (moving machines from the office to another site for an event). The reward? A thank you email recognizing their good job and a $50 card. $50 divided by 6-7 hours overtime = less than $10/hour. Ridiculous! • No end of year bonus. You have to earn it by competing in Christmas contests. These are fun, but if you don’t participate, not only you get labeled as anti-social, but you'll have no probabilities of earning the extra money.