Change is coming, and I hope it is in the right direction.
Pros
I have been working at Wacker for a couple years now. So far, I feel that I personally have been greatly rewarded. -There are opportunities for international business travel, and company culture allows you to have fun on these adventures. -There are many opportunities to take on new, exciting work or do something different. -Wacker is hungry for new people, and this makes it a nice place for younger workers to start their career. -401K Match, health insurance, and dental are all good. I have heard vision is mediocre (bundled with health), but I haven’t needed it yet. -My coworkers are generally great to work with, and people try their best to be helpful. -There are occasional surprise benefits granted to perk things up every now and then. -Upper management is visible and fairly approachable. You may even meet members of the global executive board.
Cons
-Although my pay has been quite good so far, others frequently complain about low salaries. -Despite claiming to strive for being “the employer of choice” the executives directly state they are aiming for average PTO and vacation. This coupled with sometimes low base pay leads to inconsistent messaging. -The regional executives often seem out of touch and are not always professional in their communications sent through mass emails especially. This causes anything negative to be exacerbated and creates persistent negative atmospheres from time to time. -I feel the organization is bloated at the top: too many managers for too few “productive” staff, and the middle managers do not seem very well-rounded or capable in many cases. -All benefits increase markedly as you move up the ladder, and so for lower ranking workers it can feel as though you are in a different caste. Base pay is better of course, but the bonus percentage of base pay is also higher and in some cases automatically doubled vacation. Since vacation is granted according to a strict policy, you cannot negotiate for more and are stuck waiting for 10 years (within the company) to achieve the same level. Even with a bloated management structure, at best 1/4 to 1/3 of employees will ever benefit from those higher tiers of rewards. -The company is not very accommodating to new parents. -Some company systems are outdated or incredibly old-fashioned, and this leads to inefficiencies. -If you work in Adrian the atmosphere can be rather gloomy. I work at another location where it is much better.
