Opportunity to do great things
Pros
I love our product. Our trucks are really cool. They are beautiful, massive, and awesome. I have worked at Kenworth, a division of PACCAR, for my entire 22 year professional career and I love this place. So of course, I am completely biased. One of the things that I enjoy about working here is seeing the new designs that I work on rolling down the highway and being a part of building and improving the lives of others, and making the world that we live in a better place. Our customers are great. There is no better person to tell you how good something is or how bad it sucks than a truck driver. It is brutal honesty, and I wouldn’t want it any other way! I have to say that one of the best things about this company is that we are big enough to do great things, but small enough that we as employees can really make a difference. We work “lean”, meaning that we are asked to do a lot, making it very challenging but also providing a lot of opportunity. I frequently work extra hours and it has been recognized and rewarded. I took advantage of the tuition partial-reimbursement to complete a Master’s Degree which has helped me strengthen my skill-set and I have applied what I learned from both the coursework and my thesis research to what I do everyday. I really enjoy the people that I work with and their passion for what we do. One of my fellow co-workers, a group supervisor, recently shared his philosophy of managing his team. He said he doesn’t expect perfection, and knows that people will not get it right every time. He continued by saying what really matters is what they do when something goes wrong. I share his philosophy and believe that it is one of the things that makes us a great company. If things don’t go right we dive in and we make it work.
Cons
PACCAR corporate culture can be bruising to employees based on my own experience. A few years ago I was made aware that one of our senior executives stated that my hair style conflicted with PACCAR’s image and that he wanted something done about it. I’m a 47 year old man and I wear a long neatly braided ponytail. I reported this incident to our HR office and was told “that’s just the way he is” and I was encouraged by HR to leave the building and hide when the executive visited our office. After about seven months of this degrading arrangement I formally submitted a written request for equal treatment and access to the workplace that my fellow employees had. Upon doing so I was warned by the HR office that by making a formal request it would be “career limiting” to me, that it would also negatively impact the General Manager at our location, and that I did not have HR support. Since that meeting I have feared losing my livelihood and have been concerned that by standing up for my beliefs and morals that I was doing damage to leadership team members that I look up to and admire. I was also among a group of about 30-40 men at our location that were abruptly told to shave our beards. In my case, having worn a beard for almost a decade, I was told that I was violating a policy that had always been in-place, but that had not been enforced. I was given 15 minutes to leave the office, asked to go home and complete my workday remotely using VPN access, and told not to return to work until I had shaved my face. In the few minutes that I had before I left the office I sent an email to the HR manager stating that this policy conflicted with my spiritual beliefs. When I returned to work the next morning I took a signed copy of a request for accommodation, and was told by the HR office “Good luck”. At that point I was in a state of complete confusion, unsure of my status, and feared for my job and my future. I have discreetly reached out to PACCAR Leadership over the past few years to advocate for change and for an increased respect for diversity but it has been unproductive. Occasionally we, as employees, are asked to “expend” our earned vacation in a manner that will benefit the accounting books so that it will show a more favorable financial condition. I will bluntly state that “I AM AN ENGINEER” and this is completely mind boggling. In my world, once something has left the “dotted line” that surrounds a control volume, it is gone. You don’t get to count it again! Despite my comments here in the “con” section, I do have a very positive outlook for the future of PACCAR. I recently observed an effort by our employees to take a critical look at our work environment and to develop recommendations for improvement. It was inspiring to see the new generation of employees collaborating alongside our tenured staff, and I am particularly impressed with our emerging leaders that are challenging corporate dogma, and are doing so with hard data and a systematic transparent approach. If you are considering a career with us I encourage you to do it. Bring your toughness, your willingness to never give up, and come join us.