Thumbs Down! - Engineer John Deere Employee Review

CYCLICAL BUSINESS: The business performance is subject to a number uncertainties such as tariffs, new legislation, weather etc. UNFAIR GPMs RATING & BIASED PROMOTION PRACTICES: There was a manager from Waterloo, IA that once commented here on Glassdoor in 2017 that the GPMs ratings are false. He wrote that he had used the GPMs more to punish than to help an employee. Yes, he was right. That is how it works! You work very hard, delivering 95-98% of the goals but the 2-5% that you failed to deliver will be your undoing during the end of the year rating. Promotions are based on who you know. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, if the opening is greater than LG7, you won’t get it unless you are the favored employee. RACISM & ANTI-MINORITY: If Deere could keep Ivy League educated racial minorities in one position for 7,8+ years without a promotion, then you know there is a problem. I knew of minorities with Ivy League degrees who left the company as mid-level managers to become executives (Directors, VP..) at other global manufacturing companies. If you are a racial minority, Deere is only good until you are vested. After that, you may not get any meaningful career opportunity again till you are close to your retirement. Don’t let any of their publicity that shows some pictures of minorities hoodwink you into believing that Deere is a place for you as a minority, especially if you are a person of color. If you are a racial minority, your projects get extra scrutiny. You will be overly probed and thoroughly checked out. You will lack full support on many of your projects. Many vital information that you need to complete your project successfully will be withheld from you by your teammates. When they smile at you and praise you in your presence, they are secretly plotting your downfall underneath. You are the fun subject of discussion when they go to bars to drink beers or go golfing. If you are a racial minority, I will advise you to AVOID Augusta, GA, Dubuque, IA & Waterloo, IA by all means. Dubuque, Iowa in particular is a very racist city and the residents show their disdain for outsiders. It was reported on the NPR in 2016 that the FBI was in Dubuque following a cross-burning event to sensitize the residents about implications of hate crime. Most Deere employees in Dubuque, IA are from the area and they hire and promote each other. As a matter of fact, you need to be a devout Catholic, Irish or German descent before you can make any meaningful ingress into Dubuque as a city. This same pattern is also evident in the way majority of “Dubuquers” who are Deere employees act towards outsiders. They are anti-minority; even ANTI-WHITES who aren’t from the area. Many racial minorities have come and gone while progressive-minded whites are also leaving Dubuque C&F in droves for the Quad Cities. I have seen a racial minority (contract employee) from a top college being let go without notice only for the manager to post an open position in his group externally to hire a “non-person of color”. Meanwhile, there was another contract “non-person of color” employee from that same team who was helped to become a full-time Deere employee even though he never had any college degree. FAMILY TIES & NEPOTISM: Nepotism is widespread within the company. People who are well-connected or related by marriage usually hire and promote one another. Sometimes you will see a husband who is a Labor Grade 12 or above with a wife who is a director, business unit manager or another Labor Grade10 at a near sister factory. I have seen a manager that once had his daughter-in-law as a cubicle neighbor. Some couples sit in the same office building at a distance of about 15 feet from each other. BOGUS GLASSDOOR RATINGS: About 26 ratings were entered between September 30, 2018 and October 01, 2018. All these ratings were highly favorable to the company. As an individual who has spent A LOT of time reading and analyzing Deere Glassdoor comments over the past 5 years, I can tell that the chance of a group of employees entering mass comments such as the one that occurred on 09-30-2019 is non-existent. I found that very strange! Then, roughly 12% of the highly satisfactory ratings came from interns and part-time students. These group of employees have temporary experiences and therefore are uninformed of the partisan nature of the company. Thus, I will advise future interns not to really consider their temporary experiences, which are largely positive as a signal of a great career outlook