Responsibility with No Authority - Anonymous employee Rain Bird Employee Review

1.0
Jun 18, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Very talented and knowledgeable individual contributor workforce - Willingness to testing ideas or concepts; very easy to get funding to test concepts prior to fully program investment - Select business segments have tremendous growth opportunities

Cons

- Privately held company where all decisions seemingly need to be approved by the company's President (especially frustrating when contributors are held responsible for decisions he makes) - Company lacks strategic plan or vision - company's version of their "strategic" planning process is task based with CEO wish list of ideas and focus areas (that can change significantly on an annual basis and has a large down-stream impact). Very little direction or collaboration with business unit or experts. - Total resistance to change/strong "Rain Bird Way" procedures. Although they hire highly qualified and experienced professionals and publicly claim they want to hear new ideas or improve processes, the reality is that change is discouraged and employees who try to drive it can be looked down upon - High turnover, resulting in very little subject matter expertise - Enterprise wide misalignment of job title to market responsibility (most employees believe that the job title misalignment is partially driven by the high turnover and a desire to make employees less marketable outside the company)

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Rain Bird Response
7y
Thank you for sharing your thoughts; we appreciate your comments. We agree that Rain Bird has a very knowledgeable and talented workforce, and that the future growth potential for Rain Bird is excellent! We apologize we didn’t communicate our long-term plans to you effectively. We have been in the market for more than 85 years. During this time, we have witnessed drastic changes in the economy and the market, and, as a result, have sometimes had to take difficult decisions. These decisions have always been made for the long-term well-being of the company and our employees. Being a privately held company we are able to invest for the long term to ensure that we remain the leader in providing water saving products and services for irrigation. Rain Bird appreciates our employees and welcomes their input. As you know, each year we solicit all employees for feedback on how we can improve what we do. From this input, actions are taken to make improvements. Additionally, employees are encouraged to take the initiative to try new approaches and improve processes that will improve results. At Rain Bird, we believe job titles are not limits, but merely the beginning of where your interests can take you. We would welcome any additional suggestions you might have. Please send us an email at employee feedback@rainbird.com.

Explore other reviews about Rain Bird

5.0
Jul 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great people and management teams

Cons

Little interaction with C Suite

4.0
Jul 7, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of freedom and independence, not much micro management, can come up with cool ideas.

Cons

Hard to advance, people stay in their spots for a long time, remote employees excluded from advancement in general. Benefits are bad, health care terrible. 401k match is weak

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