A provincial company for anyone w/o ambitions and creativity
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Some of my ex-colleagues as they were really friendly, interesting and inspirational, unfortunately many of them have also left or are about to do it.
Some of the managers - there a few really inspiring personalities with "good governance" management. But I am grateful also to those less good ones since they provided me with useful example of mismanagement and incapability, with features that affect good functioning within any Organisation making people resign and something I can use when assessing my own career decisions, professional approach to problems and people.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
IMHO, the corporate philosophy and mentality of this company unfortunately got stuck in late 80s, at best 90s. The hardware, image, look and new building - this might be or look very up-to-date but what matters the most: approach to its most valuable capital, human capital - its employees - is far behind the average of 21st century.
The management had apparently no idea what ČSR is - a term familiar to any student of first grade of economics school.
The overall respected and well known fact that the best employees are those who have a full understanding of the processes, the cause, and yes also the limitations - those who are trusted rather than controlled all the time and reminded the 10 minutes their delayed morning arrival.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
Some kind of internal management purge would definitely do good or will be vital for the future.
Not always are those who simply sit and automatically nod the management also the best and most capable. For too many managers of PAKi, especially those local ones, their jobs are simply a nice and comfy chair to sit on, they are no hustlers but do not project any real inspiration or motivation either, there are some exceptions as always of course but also these shape up after a while and accommodate..or they leave, as well as many of the employees do.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
This depends very much on the team and department one lands in.
I cannot speak for other teams or the National Dept. (German speaking area) where mostly local people from Ennepetal & its neighbourhood work. For myself, I was very lucky in this regard - we had a fair team with friendly atmosphere despite the pressure, mismanagement and chaos from above.
Kommunikation
Workflows are insufficient and not good in general.
I was very often amazed (and angered) how a company that built up her business primarily on communication and data management this service is actually all about (and one must admit it IS impressively smart know-how with future) can hire kind of people who are very often quite poor at this basic feature: at communication and EQ (in my opinion a core and must-have quality anyone in this industry should manage).
Instead, the company gives leadership and management often to those who out of their nature not only have capabilities to manage well but does not even set any clear and fixed guidlines. The result was that from the very beginning everything was quite improvisational and chaotical creating naturally a heck of misunderstandings and conflicts among colleagues, teams and departments.
Sadly, the company also hires people who have not only a sufficient command of English but especially zero understanding for other cultures and nationalities. This is especially for the National/German half of the company where 95% employees were people whose awareness of the world reaches not further than one-week holiday in Mallorca and for whom Wuppertal constitues a big city.
This is not meant as these were all bad and unfriendly people, not at all - many of them were extremely nice and reasonable, good at what they do for most of their. However, their approach to foreigners (who account for at least 40% of total number of employees) was typical as for someone who is not very much used to meeting a foreigner or even talking to them, open-minded and cosmopolitan employees are a handful at PAKi.
So, a multicultural environment as PRO yes but rather as necessary evil than something natural and wished.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
Very individual and again, I was quite lucky on this, at least in my closest team. Of course, there are always some who like to slander around but this is normal, especially at this kind of job with quite a high level of fluctuation, unstable working teams and some less educated, simplier people (not bad but no rocket engineers or philosophers either) as this branche (logistics) always attracts.Whether it was just hypocrisy, reluctance to go into some inevitable conflict and stand up for their employees or simply comfort and unwilligness to fight for any real improvements...I never managed to find out
Work-Life-Balance
No problem with holiday approvals.
No home office possible.
Fixed working hours
Very little understanding for late comers - not possible to stay longer to make it up.
Cheating with extra hours - deducted without communicating this with employees. Lots of complaints or silent rumours about this.
The motto of PAKi is: be accurate at your arrival, work 8 hours and switch off your PC some 3 minutes before your shift end. At 16:44 you drop the pencil getting up to leave. This tells everything about any willingness to do anything more for the company that even deducts those 15 minutes between 16:45 and 17:00 from your hours counter since it is a time you should leave for home :)
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Again, this depends a lot on each of teams/dept. As any larger company/community any changes take quite a time, especially those related to some inter-personal and inter-relation issues. Basically, the managers do listen to you, the most them even give you the feeling of comprehensiveness and empathy..And that is pretty much it. Do not expect nothing more..
Whether it was just hypocrisy, reluctance to go into some inevitable conflict and stand up for their employees or simply kind of comfort and unwilligness to make extra effort for any real improvements...? Well, I never managed to find out.
Btw. Can a company where not even long-term hired Key Account Managers with all the benefits related have a satisfactory command of English (making their people hard life with a simple report elaborated in a Google-Translator-style) be really (self)defined as international and successful on international scale?
Interessante Aufgaben
Tasks themselves were fun first but after not a very long time they became quite monotonous and uncreative. Any kind of autonomous attempt to do things better, more efficiently and let´s say out of box was subdued and rejected. No space for original and pioneering approaches. Forget it.
One important point about PAKi as a whole: the company does not need or want creative people - some employees (especially those who got stuck working there for more than
3 years) even tell this truth very loud making the creativity a despicable expression.
Gleichberechtigung
Never seen or felt any kind of discrimination for reasons as gender, race, religion, sexual orientation.
There is a slight and very silent intolerance towards non-German or let´s rather say non-local indigenous employees but of course due to typical German political correctness it is never said aloud.
(there was one exception though I know about, happened between one German IT guy who in utmost disgusting way offended a young German Azubi (intern), a young mother. This guy pointed with his finger at the pic of her cute little son making totally inappropriate joke ´whether he was some of her accidents´)
Arbeitsbedingungen
Pros: A very nice building in beautiful country environment, big parking lot for employees, everything brand new, the facilities were built a couple of years ago.
Cons: The building is new but there was apparently no disability factor taken into account by the planning. The facilities for disabled people who could do very well this kind of office job were omitted. No lift, 2 level grounds, lots of stairs everywhere etc.
Big open space offices - in 21st century quite a bad joke - makes an impression of a nicer call center but you will simply still be disturbed pretty much when unlucky to sit next to a colleague who likes to be loud and dramatic while dealing on the phone :)
No good connection by other traffic than a car or on foot. Also quite negative environmental factor - I was asked already during job interview if I owned a car which is very often quite a decisive point between more candidates (sigh). However, it is quite impossible to get there without your car or you have to be dependent on the others who give you the lift.
No buses, no shuttle. Only a train station some 3kms far aways.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
Social: No ČSR policy - when I asked about this, the managers did not even seem to know what that is about.
It was not my case but as far as I know those colleagues with little kids or babies had not easy lives due to the HR pressure on early accurate arrivals, reluctance to make home office available.
Environment: No way how to get there without a car or by foot (mentioned in point Working Conditions)
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
Do not expect you gonna get rich, the good thing is one is paid a bit more than the German minimum wage and after some time it is possible to negotiate a pay rise.
Image
Not that bad.
Quite a modern look of websites and marketing materials, environmental green is company s Či and it is well deserved as the service really in most cases saves environment, reduces amount of truck rides..
Karriere/Weiterbildung
As mentioned already the chances or opportunities for a personal professional growth of the customers are not big. Well, quite the opposite. Apart from some language courses (inhouse or subsidised at one of public language schools) for the employees, there were no other forms of further education even though we asked for these. Even the knowledge of German language by the foreign employees is not very supported, one has to ask for the course and wait a long time to have it approved.
In the 40-year-long history of PAKi there was only one real employee survey to find out how the employees are satisfied with their conditions, tasks, what they liked to have improved etc. As far as I know there has never been any information this would be taken into account and put into practice.
There was one in-house course for cold acquisitions and also one workshop to discuss the questions put in the survey. Again, no real outcomes.