Pros
- Recent emphasis on flexible work arrangements (a decade later than everyone else, but progress just the same). - Pay is good for the area. In some of the smaller locations, you could live like a king on a John Deere salary. - Good emphasis on employee development. The JD Learning classes aren't great, but they do offer a tuition reimbursement so that you can get a real education. - There are some really great middle managers in supply management, folks that genuinely try to do the right thing. - The young people on the bottom end of the organization are great. Inexperienced, but defiantly have their heads screwed on right. If the upper levels of management and the big 3 automotive refugees would hurry up and retire, you would see a level of performance at Deere that would dwarf the rest of the industry. There is a ton of pent up talent in the individual contributor level.
Cons
- While other companies are tearing down functional silos and flattening the org chart, John Deere is calling a silo contractor to reinforce theirs. Little fiefdoms are popping up everywhere. - As a result of the point above, functional areas don't play nice. You will spend half of your day (at least in Waterloo) defending yourself from others in the organization. Once something goes wrong, there isn't a scramble to make it right, there is a scramble to hurry up and generate a "metric" that shows it is someone else's fault. - Emphasis on SVA (shareholder value added) drives some really bad behavior. Shoving tractors out the door at all costs is the norm. There isn't a single process or standard that can't be subverted, at least temporarily, to make green tractors roll out the door. - John Deere is a political nightmare. We have created a giant bureaucracy of an organization, and then celebrated and promoted people who prove capable of little else than navigating through the red tape. When the only skills that are valued are political in nature, promotions go to the people least likely to change the climate, and people who do amazing things are left at the lower levels of the org chart to keep making miracles happen. Your best bet, to get promoted, is to pick a mentor who can shoehorn you into a management position.