Caterpillar reviews

4.0

77% would recommend to a friend

(7,340 total reviews)

Joe Creed

68% approve of CEO

74% positive business outlook

Caterpillar has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 7,340 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Caterpillar employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

7K reviews
2.0
Apr 25, 2022

Temporary Career

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible hours, and great company culture.

Cons

Extremely high turnover rate and will probably have to train the person who is taking your job.

2.0
Apr 14, 2022

greatness in decline

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-Compensation is generally high....but completely inequitable -Strong health care/benefit package, good 401K match -Bonuses can be really generous...when the metrics aren't gamed to insure that rank and file don't cash in two years in a row -Large global footprint creates lots of opportunities for people willing to relocate -Engineers still really design some cool stuff -Ability to learn lots of interesting processes on the job....not always ones that will help you in your career anywhere else, however.

Cons

-Crippling red tape coupled with the removal of many US based support organizations in favor of self service and outsourced or foreign subsidiary employees makes it impossible to do anything promptly or efficiently, like raise purchase orders, set up and pay vendors, analyze labor costs, investigate intercompany charges, hire staff to replace those who "pursue other opportunities," complete employee evaluations, and so on and so on -Complete lack of accountability among decision making class (and the locus of control is set far, far too high - prepare to talk to a VP about a $50 expenditure if you dare to make one, and to spend most of a meeting correcting trite points and PowerPoint fonts) leads to folly after folly (Bucyrus, Siwei, Deerfield, generators, and so on), but constant, and annual reorganizations cover the tracks of every executive making internal comparability across periods opaque -Merit increases and already accrued bonuses for mid to lower management employees are literally referred to as "headwinds" by top execs in their public meetings with wall street -Completely inequitable workloads for equivalent positions, even within the same departments and division/sections. Terrible work life balance for key positions; expectation is that you'll call in during PTO, sick days, whatever to not inconvenience power brokers in the slightest -Dysfunctional forecasting and budgeting processes that consume insane amounts of time and resources only to force the inputs to unrealistic levels of profit -Cargo cult management style -Benchmarking to the point of insanity - innovate by copying, apparently -Ridiculous overemphasis on DEI -Preposterous asks of employees, like constant panhandling for their company political action committee run by incompetents, covering two full jobs for months at a time to save on labor while a backfill is found, penny pinching on travel which is expected to be performed at times on weekends or holidays even -Continued long term rule by fear and cult of personality in finance division leads to perception of sycophancy = advancement

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Caterpillar Response
4y
Thanks for taking the time to leave a thorough review. We are glad that there were many things you enjoyed about your time with us and appreciate your honesty around ways we can improve. Your feedback is valued and we wish you all the best in the next chapter of your career.
4.0
Mar 3, 2022

It’s a paycheck

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits, decent pay, PTO and structure.

Cons

No room for advancement without college degree.

Viewing 448 - 450 of 7,340 Reviews

Glassdoor has 10,082 Caterpillar reviews submitted anonymously by Caterpillar employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Caterpillar is right for you.