ZF Group reviews

No carrer development unless you are MG, too bureaucratic

Please take it from me, I provide this evaluation with utmost honesty and sincerety for any reader looking for stable or competitive career; -Each ZF work location unfortunately acts completely independently, while seeming to follow each other only on paper. For example, not every employee can have Performance, Potential, Succession review in Germany (Annual Performance review and career planning). German locations follow very different norms even compared to each other. -The talent acquisition department, specifically the personnel located in Düsseldorf, Friedrischafen and Czsechtowa (Poland) are unfortunately quite unfamiliar with Job Descriptions and business processes related to the roles that they publish, there is often breach of confidentiality and they have very little direct connection with the legal entities planning positions in OP, which costs a lot of time when a position is already cancelled or filled but the candidate is still being interviewed. There were also some unprofessional instances where recruiters invited candidates to meetings on weekend days due to having a planned time off (recruiter) on the following Monday or week. Foreign HR solution partners and external service providers are much more competitive and competent than internal HR talent acquisition when it comes to understanding roles and communications -There is overall no interest in preserving a talent or developing a talent from internal resources -Many process documents in sourcing and project evolution related areas are designed and tailored by those who are not even employed in the areas of work that are covered by those manuals. Specifically in purchasing and Project Management Manuals have controversial content and they have lack of direction. Some rules are away from the reality of company's own project execution today -If you hold a niche/key position or have a role dealing with high complexity of work, your manager wants you to only remain in your current role as long as possible. Thus, career development and even internal lateral movements are not wanted. No matter the performance level in a year, the performance grades are always given as reasonably low as possible so that the potential of an employee does not increase. Specific business situations occuring spontaneously are used always in judgement when that performance review takes place (once a year, but not for every employee) -Specifically in Germany, managers are somewhat much more insecure and have very low confidence than that of in any country, and they avoid working with employees in close proximity because their understanding of business processes and problems almost never align with the work level employees who execute those processes. Even in most respectfully set up meetings and most advanced problem presentations & 5W2Hs, if a manager is pulled into a decision making, it is almost impossible to get them interpret the problem and agree with a solution proposed by the employees (despite the solutions being proposed and analyzed already by employees. Solutions are not even demanded from manager levels due to their low interest in understanding a problem and making changes) -Due to the confidence issue, it is unfortunately very common to observe lack of direction and instruction in complex tasks going beyond employee discretion and competency/skills, which also possibly exceed supervisor/managers mental capacity and possibly the reason for not receiving any decision from the manager. Employees often have to take decisions alone and execute them. Also Employees often lack social $ professional feedback at work place and employees are left alone in self exploration -Unfortunately, there is significant amount of professional side lining and offline intimacy development which causes majority of significant leadership positions to go to the inexperienced people. Majority of key leadership position holders learn the job description and business processes after getting promoted and usually do not have a perception of challenges faced in processes. They spend unreasonably high amount of time learning the processes associated with the work environment of the jobs they promote to. -Diversity and anticipation are key principles but unfortunately diversity is always used to tolerate and mask off negligence specifically when done by an inexperienced but socially or professionally important figure, they are always protected no matter the mistakes and issues caused by them. Anticipation is unfortunately not appreciated and employees' anticipation of risks and opportunities in business is always considered speculation, even. -Inside the same country, it is almost impossible to get relocated through neutral shift if a level of intimacy does not exist with the department leader that an employee works. If the department leader is likely to work at the same site as the employee, it is likely that the leader will not pave the way -Pay inequality is unfortunately prevalent and broad due to performance reviews resulting in no compensation often and pay raise denial when requested once a year or in a special circumstance even. New joiners receive better pay grades with negotiations -Overall, much thinking & processing and talking employees in sourcing and purchasing or project manager roles are not appreciated. Employee feedback on business processes or contribution efforts / process improvement is not valued. Working in a purchasing discipline, seeing more than one company acquisition and many different manager-work level headcount join the company, the above has been my experience.