- DAF mostly hires engineers with flexible contracts through secondment agencies. Then you get 25 days of vacation through your agency, while your DAF contract colleagues get 40 days. If you aim to have DAF contract, it may take years; there is no definite timeline and it does not depend on how successful you are. To have DAF contract, somebody within the group needs to leave, retire or you must really have unique skills that DAF could not afford to lose. Many employees are unhappy with their contract status as most of them are concerned whether DAF will renew the contract with their secondment agency every year. It is even more stressful for the non-EU colleagues as their residence is depending on their job. Names and e-mails are different for seconded people in the company. No bonus is paid for them, while DAF contract people enjoy the success of the company with the bonus paid to their accounts.
- Product Development division is very conservative when it comes to show value to their employees. DAF appreciates and values the roles involved in money such as purchasing or sales, not technical roles. You won’t see in sales or purchasing departments people hired through agencies, they are on fixed contracts.
- DAF decides when to use your 12-13 days of your holidays. W31 and W32 is DAF shut down every year and you have to take holidays in high summer season where the costs for plane tickets, hotels etc. are very high.
- There is no or little contribution to personal development. No training or education. If you are seconded, it is not even a possibility. There is no such budget or time to afford, you are not the priority. A lot of the workforce needs to be trained for the work they are doing but DAF prefers buying the knowledge from outside via consultancy instead of keeping/growing the knowledge inside.
- When you want to change something better or you complain about it, often the answer is “This is the DAF way, we have been doing the job like this for years”. There is a lot of resistance from management to adapt changes.
- Poor process. There is no or little guidance on how to do process related things. It is always a hassle to learn how to do the certain tasks (for eg releasing documents). Usually you depend on other people to help you. There are many outdated tools where some of them are only available in Dutch. No standard for the quality of work, everybody is doing the same job in a different way. Poor documentation and configuration management, not much respect to quality procedures.
- Poor organization and decision making at all levels. There is no or little synchronization between Project members and groups. Roles are not clearly defined. It is always a hassle to find the right person who is responsible for certain task. A lot of tasks are floating in the organization without ownership. People avoid picking up responsibilities. Decisions related to your work can be given without having your opinion and you would not be informed on time. No flat hierarchy. You usually hear decisions are given by individuals (managers), not by the group of people.
- No or little guidance, orientation or help during onboarding. A lot of struggle with getting to know the company, process and people as people are reserved to help. You may not see the production facility or you may not even have a chance to get on a truck and be driven around even though you are developing the product itself.
- Not much room for salary growth. If you work through agency, the hourly rate that DAF pays does not change over the years and agencies usually decrease the amount of raise by years.
- Cost oriented approach. Quality, innovation or trying new things are not part of DAF vision. Management accepts that they are not innovators but followers. DAF is heavily dependent on suppliers; little is made in-house depending on the department you are working for.
- People are afraid to challenge the status quo, most of the things are accepted as they are with little sense/logic and nobody is trying to change. Some managers have little or no power and are afraid to confront with their upper managers for you. They try to be nice to their superiors rather than supporting and protecting their employees.
- Outdated and complicated clocking system. No clear guideline. For flex employees, hours worked between 7.5 and 8 hours are not counted, which means loss of working overtime. Flex hours can be used in a weekly basis for flex employees.
- Poor business ethics. Lack of good corporate communication with external parties and suppliers.
- In general, senior engineers are more reserved and take less responsibility than junior engineers. Average age can be very high in certain departments.
- Lack of staff and capacity. Poor capacity plan. Workload is very high in general.
