Innovative product and extraordinary culture, but lacking in some aspects
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
It is hard do decide whether the rating should be a 4 or a 3. In the end, I tend towards a 4, because in comparison to other German companies censhare scores quite well.
The good
- great product with a high (and challenging) degree of complexity
- mostly motivated and very competent people
- very good future prospects
- open to new-ish forms of work (yes, "home office" still counts as new in Germany)
- fantastic, freshly cooked lunch, prepared approx. 3x per week
- relatively easy-going atmosphere (on the surface)
- high degree of independence in how one organises the work
- high employee retention
- management very open to new suggestions and ideas
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
The bad
- employess have no set budget for training (in terms of time and money); it all depends on your negotiation skills and your manager
- structured and individual development of people is not really taking place; everyone's left to themselves to develop their skills
- no support for employees with small kids (other than home office and flexible work hours) and not much understanding on the side of management, it seems; legal obligations are adhered to, but that's about it
- vision is not clear when is comes to aspects other than economic growth and regional expansion; this one-sided focus on economic aspects seems to have increased in the last year or so
- the salary is below the average for Germany (and even more so for Munich, of course)
- furniture isn't very ergnomic at all
- unlike other raters, I am not aware of any ecological efforts other than the organic lunch
The ugly
- inconvenient location; hard to reach by public transport; unpleasant, un-representative surroundings
- firing policies seem very arbitrary; colleagues just disappear from one day to the next without any explanations; it's just not talked about at all other than an announcement on yammer.
- no benefits other than base salary (or, if they do exist, they are not advertised at all)
Verbesserungsvorschläge
improve the internal communication, e.g. when it comes to lay-offs, available benefits etc.
create or communicate a vision that goes beyond simply increasing profits, growing the company and building a great product
(this might be a "generation Y" thing)
kids are a fact of life and it should be accepted that employees will at times have more important things to do than work; support the employees and they will thank you for it by remaining loyal!
(note that this is a general problem in companies, not a censhare thing)
is it really necessary to stick with the current location? the company deserves something better...
create solid structures for supporting people in the development of their skills, e.g. by assigning everyone a fixed budget of x days and y Euros per year for self-selected training
improve the benefits beyond base salary, e.g. private retirement provisions etc.