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Hughes Network Systems

Part of EchoStar

Engaged Employer

Hughes Network Systems reviews

2.8

39% would recommend to a friend

(656 total reviews)
avatar

Hamid Akhavan

26% approve of CEO

24% positive business outlook

Hughes Network Systems has an employee rating of 2.8 out of 5 stars, based on 656 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Hughes Network Systems employee rating is 22% below average for employers within the Telecommunications industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

656 reviews
2.0
Jul 8, 2024

Uncertain future

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Dynamic and fulfilling work (depending on your team). - Opportunities for professional growth (heavily depends on your manager).

Cons

- New CEO seems to be out of touch with what the Hughes workforce wants. Look up reviews for Dish Network and EchoStar as well. EchoStar owns both Dish and Hughes now, so recent reviews for those companies likely tell the future of what will happen to Hughes. - No telework. They have started to monitor who badges in and when, to ensure workers are onsite. They did allow telework during COVID, then they switched to a hybrid policy, and then they slowly and surreptitiously took away the hybrid days until there were none left, with no evidentiary reason provided to us. This created a toxic anti-telework environment, where everyone compared who was teleworking when. This bred jealously among different groups that had different onsite requirements. - Employee feedback is not sought before major changes, such as return to office. Major business decisions are made without so much as an employee survey. Employees have a distinct lack of input on decisions that directly affect their work-life balance. - Quarterly performance reviews are surface level, consisting mostly of 1-5 ratings with no room explanation. We had a more robust review process with the previous CEO. - Low pay compared to industry standards, unless you're management / director level. Very top-heavy company. - 401K match is the below the industry standard. - Increased the cost of the healthcare plan and reduced their HSA match by a third at the same time. This is an HDHP, so HSA contributions are critical since you're paying for most expenses out of pocket. Premiums for the plan have increased, as have deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums. - Recently reduced the number of holidays they give, as well as the PTO cap. - Groups are heavily siloed. Many work on different software platforms, which makes collaboration difficult. Other groups just outright ignore requests for information. Collaboration is rare, unless the project manager truly fights for it.

4.0
Jun 21, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Many good co-workers. I have a good work/life balance with my manager almost never asking me to work overtime (only twice in my five years) and always willing to let me take time off for a variety of reasons (even on short notice provided there isn't an important deadline coming up). Hughes provides the opportunity for engineers to either move into a management path or a technical expertise path, and both are highly valued within the company. This decision is entirely up to the employee and you can dabble a bit in both before making it final. Was willing to work with me to increase my compensation package when I asked (I did have another offer in hand from another company that they beat).

Cons

Compensation seems slightly lower compared to other companies in the area (I base this off of the reports of co-workers who have left Hughes). I know for a fact that Hughes doesn't take a government security clearance into account when calculating pay, so if you have a clearance, you can get better offers at other companies. Limited amount of leave (15 days for first 5 years, 20 for next 15, then 25, no sick leave) "Flexible work hours" means you can arrive between 7:00 and 9:00 and leave 9 hours later (with one hour unpaid lunch) at your manager's discretion. There is no policy for working extra time for part of the pay period in order to take extra time off during the pay period. HR doesn't allow employees to input actual time worked, but requires that you put in 8 hours per day worked, even if you work 10 hours. You are also not allowed to put in hours for weekend work. Since there is no overtime pay for salaried employees, you aren't losing any compensation. However, Hughes is losing access to data that could be used to better plan deadlines. Outside of my sub-group, I know of at least a few teams that expect decently regular overtime work. Again, this is without compensation, or even records, so management cannot better plan future deadlines, which means that the next deadline will likely require overtime work as well. No telework option

Viewing 31 - 33 of 656 Reviews

Glassdoor has 810 Hughes Network Systems reviews submitted anonymously by Hughes Network Systems employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Hughes Network Systems is right for you.