Senior Leadership Making it a Difficult Culture - Engineer Caterpillar Employee Review

2.0
Sep 16, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great co-workers and challenging work that makes a difference for customer who use our products.

Cons

Senior leader within Earthmoving Division has created a culture of fear within the organization. The culture used to be one where upward feedback was encouraged and embraced. That has changed. Upward feedback results in loss of job opportunities or job changes that feel like retaliatory actions. A senior leader has had 13+ direct reports leave within his org, sending a message to the entire organization about the culture being cultivated. "Growth Mindset" is often touted by senior leadership as a characteristic the organization needs to embrace, but it is rarely exemplified in leadership behaviors as the only opinion that seems to matter is their own. If you want to shape an organization, avoiding the Earthmoving Division would be recommended as the only strategy decisions are being made from the top. The "leader" is setting the direction and has little interest in hearing anyone's opinion. The perceived center of development is in Peoria Illinois, so if you want the ability to grow outside of central Illinois, this is likely not the place for you, unfortunately. Until there is a leadership change, I could not recommend someone onboarding within the Earthmoving division. It is a toxic culture at the moment. Everyone is just trying to keep their head down and survive. It is not a fun culture to live in each day. I would not recommend it to a friend at the moment, primarily driven by one "leader".

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5.0
Jun 7, 2026
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Pros

Great benefits Great WLB Great pay

Cons

Low mobility to move up within company

2.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good health insurance and benefits, good yearly bonuses. The pay is good.

Cons

They are enforcing returning to office by any means necessary. They have lost many high-quality producers who have refused to relocate or refuse to come in. Here's the kicker - they are requiring in-person attendance at the Chicago office and there aren't even enough desks for everyone. It would be a literal fire hazard if we all came into the Chicago office at the same time, M-F, during business hours. No one knows how or if they are going to actually enforce this. Cost of gas is insane, Joe doesn't care about the workers. Or the work for that matter. It's obvious this is a soft layoff, they have made a bunch of people quit. Their internal design agency is falling apart, lots of people have quit, not only because of return to office but because of the toxic politics, favoritism, and lack of direction and accountability. Mediocre workers are allowed to keep their jobs ONLY because of their ability to put their bodies in a chair and work in-person. The other relocation option HR gave besides Chicago was Peoria. No one wants to live in Peoria for any reason whatsoever, be for real.

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