Exciting, stressful, and understaffed.
Pros
Overall culture is very good. Depending on the reporting organization there are plenty of meet and greets, public forums, open discussions about activities, a fair amount of clarity regarding growth plans, and expectations. Management works hard to have a very good working relationship with all of the individual contributors. Many of the directors and VPs have luncheons and town halls to share what's going on. There is also a semi-annual corporate town hall where the CEO and senor VPs present the high level vision for the next time period. All of these events leave you with a good feeling of what's going on (though they are sugar coated to feel good. Nearly everyone is friendly and most of the coworkers are great to work with. Many positions offer alternative work schedules (four 9's and a 4) which is a great benefit if you get to take it. The schedule can be pretty flexible for doctors appointments, sick leave, working from home (if position allows), and requiring time off. There are also multiple picnics and social conventions throughout the year, which are a great way to socialize with fellow employees and upper management. The IT department is working on the latest technologies, which is very exciting. There is a big desire for greater productivity through technology and that has allowed many of us in the techno-sphere to get to work with the latest and greatest devices, applications, and systems. Depending on the position, you are allowed to provide direction from an individual contributor level which effects the entire company. Eastman is growing! (Positive & Negative) Eastman provides 401k matching up to 3.5% and provides and annual deposit for retirement. Many locations have onsite gyms. There are three gyms located across the Kingsport campus. Safety is emphasized and that is great to see. Dress is Business Casual Monday - Thursday and Friday is dress casual. Compensation when looked at across the US is just below market average, but it is more on par or slighter higher when considering the cost of living in the East Tennessee area
Cons
This is one of my biggest struggles with Eastman. There are many benefits to working here, but there are many cons as well. The Meetings: many employees spend so much time in meetings that we barely have time to work. Saturday night work: IT employees are expected to perform maintenance type work on Saturday nights. Understandable in a 24x7 environment with little time for downtime, but this is still a con in my view. These Saturday night working take away from quality (and valuable) personal time with friends and family. This takes away from work-life balance. On call: similar to the Saturday night work. IT employees for critical systems are expected to be on call 24x7. Depending on the team this could mean once in a blue moon, every other week, or in some cases I know of employees who are on call 24x7x365 with no relief. This is driven away several very good employees and has some on the breaking point. The people who are in the every other week model are still on call since they are 'backup', which means if the other person doesn't answer right away the backup is called. This takes away from work-life balance. Not enough vacation provided for work load during early years. Takes 5 years to accrue 3 weeks vacation and 10 years to accrue 4 weeks. Two weeks does not allow for enough down time to recover from the workload and stay healthy. This solution appears to assume that during the early years you will not have a very much stress. Frequent understaffing: many areas are overworked and understaffed. Some groups work overtime every week with no end in sight. This takes away from work-life balance. Everything is done the Eastman way. This means that simple solutions become complicated quickly as they are bent to conform to the Eastman way of doing things. Heritage exceptions most be supported forever. There is a lot of stress and management tells us that it is just a factor of life in the growth market. The company keeps growing (Yay!, good thing), buying acquisitions and not increasing staff to cover the work load shift (really bad thing!). Management also does some paper magic to make things appear like they are properly covered, but in reality one person is dedicated to a project while the other is there for backup in name only. 1.25 people assigned to project does not equal 2. Benefits keep shrinking. What was an A- benefits package has become a C+ benefits package since the recession.
