Pros
Stable business, 145 year history, profitable during pandemic, private family biz so far, mission statement and reference to gracious living is ok, intent seems positive
Cons
145 year business culture, hierarchical, many levels of consensus-based meetings, much reliance on decision-making only when it finally reaches endorsement at the top Director/VPs or if the idea comes from the top Director/VP levels. Lots of long-tenured folks along with a deep-seated Kohler Club that can’t figure out that talented people leave when they see lack of career development and see the true colors are all the same at the top. Can’t drive the stated desire to quickly test and adopt change due to a general lack of willingness to accept new ideas or outside perspectives. A long history of negative stuff gets in the way of empowering people. More silos are added instead of removed. Kind of diverse in skin colors (although many still just hire their own image) but not diverse in gender or ideas. Not many women above manager position. They “test” online pre-hire for the Kohler mold and retest with a psych test when promoting to their management mold. And the test results plus The Club will determine or limit your future potential more than what you do to learn & grow or the results you deliver, even though the psych test questions are very outdated and quite sexist. A lot of outsourcing to IT MSP and big new India tech center (ITC) for IT and global shared services which presents challenges for US and India teams working and trying to be one team within constraints of time differences. ITC also problematic since we can’t easily determine who can help with simple things like paying the bills or getting help with an IT issue.