The company motto should be, "Do it fast & cheap, not right." The biggest problem is that the ethics of Zimmer are terrible. It used to be much better, but now instead of being ethical, they are much more focused on the stock price. This has led to poor decisions, especially concerning quality.
On top of that, upper management has put policies in place that have decimated the culture. The worst part is that they blame the employees for the bad culture and have told us to "engage yourselves." It's hard to feel engaged when hard work goes unappreciated, and you are constantly in fear of losing your job.
There is a GE performance review model, where managers are forced into ranking good employees lower to "make the numbers right." In this system, 60% of the employees are ranked as mediocre or lower, most of which is undeserved. Managers are not allowed to rate their employees based on performance but rather must fit them to a curve for budgetary reasons. They claim that the rankings are "suggested," but when push comes to shove, the VPs all force the rankings lower. All this does is cause those employees to not work as hard the next year because what's the point? Or it causes backstabbing because people are fighting to save their jobs.
The pending merger has only made the culture worse. No one knows who their boss will be post-merger, and there is no communication on if your job will still be around. Everyone is sitting around and waiting. Many many good people have left because of these issues.
As an employee, even if you are an expert in your area, be prepared to be treated like a cog on a crashing train. Management would rather listen/follow their own agenda than listen to experienced employees. There is no trust or empowerment in the employees.
