Koch reviews

The company supposedly follows MBM principles, but they are not applicable to senior and upper level management. Everyone is overly critical, constantly looking for flaws in fellow employees. If you do not act like everyone else, they look to weed you out and you will become a subject of managment discussions for separation. Senior management will yell and say anything to lower level employees, but you can not do the same. Everyone is walking around like they are in the George Orwell book, "1984". There is no such thing as enterprenuerialship there because everyone is afraid of losing thier jobs. The Kochs run the business for what it is, the only major employer in the area and they use it to control the employees and their movement within the other Koch entities.

Do not expect salary increases outside of promotions and bonuses. Good reviews are not rewarded with salary growth. Even cost-of-living increases are ignored. The philosophy of the company is to reward based on realized value an employee has achieved for the company only. Expect to be worked to the bone, even if more efficient processes can be created. In one case an a salaried accounting group would regularly work on weekends at a mill location to complete required managerial reports. A report solution was estimated to cost $8000 and save approximately 48 weekend overtime hours of the "salaried" employees time per month. The decision was made to reject the investment since the employees were salaried and were coming in without pay anyway. Expect a cut-throat environment in which every employee and department is fighting for ideas and service opportunities to survive. The group that "wins" the business opportunity is rewarded and survives even if the idea is stolen from another group. As such, groups often befriend other groups and individuals to "spy" and gain project ideas. Whoever presents the idea the best and the fastest wins. Be ready for a lot of blood, sweat and tears.