Shrinking Benefits and Convoluted Management
Pros
Rockwell Collins has been, and still is, staffed with smart, young people that put in the time to get work done. There is enough of a crusty old guard that is more than eager to help and a large collection of middle aged people that haven't quite caught on that they have topped out.
Cons
Recently we all were "mapped" from Rockwell Collins to UTC professional bands. Long story short, the bulk of engineers were "Senior Engineer" and below, and these map to same three lowest ranks. Some principal engineers were made staff engineers and some were allowed to stay principal engineers. Then about three more levels of super-engineer ranks were created and I don't have a clue who got those jobs. Bottom line is that for about 90% of the workforce our job titles did not change much. And guess what - today we learned that everyone "staff engineer" and below no longer gets to participate in the yearly bonus. This is a huge slap in the face that was soft soaped by some HR person who said in a video that continuing bonuses for everyone was unsustainable. Complete garbage. Bonuses are paid as positive re-enforcement of productive behavior, and by cutting 90% of the workforce out it is clearly obvious that upper management only feels that positive re-enforcement is necessary with "leadership" not with the people actually doing the work. This is dead wrong - it is the kids out of school, working the long hours, that should get bonuses for making a difference, not the upper echelon of engineers, not the CAMs or project engineers, and certainly not management. This kind of behavior, along with inane "cardinal rules" (where you can fired for petty "safety violations"), purposely vague job band descriptions (that permit management to put someone pretty much where-ever they want), and a general lack of top down communication, make it plainly obvious that management viewers the workers as cattle... which tragically is counter to the previous Rockwell Collins corporate culture that espoused inclusion and a desire to engage the individual employee.
