Good for work life balance, bad for advancement
Pros
The quality of life allowed by working at Agilent is truly extraordinary. Work schedules are extremely flexible, with managers being even more accomodating of working at home or odd hours for employees with children. People are also genuinely nice, treating others and their ideas with an impressive mix of respect and candor. Management really does try to manage "properly" - according to commonly accepted rules of good management.
Cons
Because Agilent is a flat organization with unusually low turnover (lots of "lifers" who love the culture) opportunities for advancement are scarce. This is particularly frustrating for people with ambition. Management of the operations of the company is broken. It's far too bureaucratic and slow. In an extremely complex business, more power should be given to individual managers, who better understand their customers and products. As it is, corporate management distrusts product line managers and this distrust manifests itself in micromanagement of budgets and projects.. This phenomenon may have existed for decades and as a result there is a total lack of leadership at lower management levels. The age old problem of bureacracies exists here, you're not rewarded for successes, you're punished for mistakes. The result is that small successes are celebrated because no one takes chances that could lead to big successes.