Looking for a fulfilling corporate career with growth opportunities, a positive culture, and strong leadership? You certainly won't find that here! What you WILL find is a rigid work environment where managers are the golden children, leadership resists positive changes, technology never advances, and micromanagement and favoritism rule.
I understand that a lot of people come to Ford the exact same way I did—desperately needing a job. And if Ford offers you one…you might just have to take it. A lot of people get trapped there this way. If Ford is truly your only option, here is what you should expect…
There were times that what I experienced at Ford felt akin to emotional abuse. Everyone I know who's left has felt the same way. We’d all been reduced to hollow shells of our former selves by the time we left Ford, and stepping into a work environment that is actually healthy is jarring, to say the least. None of us are prepared for the culture shock. It takes time to learn that your new boss won't treat you like your bosses at Ford did—and by that, I mean that they won’t require you to answer for every single minute of your day (not an exaggeration, trust me), talk poorly about you to your direct coworkers when you’re not around, or complete essays proving that you understand your own job duties as if you’re still in high school.
The biggest issue jobseekers need to be aware of at Ford is its culture...or lack thereof. Yes, benefits are poor and compensation is “meh,” but it’s the toxic culture that will be the nail in the coffin for most. Employees are not listened to or shown much appreciation, and any new ideas are shut down by the executive team, who no one is brave enough to stand up to. Every little thing requires their permission, which results in a lot of bottlenecking of progress companywide. If you happen to make a mistake, expect it to be brought up multiple times for the next handful of months. It will probably also be brought up to other members of your team, either so they can learn from it or so they can be asked to babysit you and make sure you don’t mess up again. That happened to me and my coworkers a number of times.
A big problem under the culture umbrella is that sometimes, sexism and even ageism can make an appearance. The executive team at Ford hides behind the term “male-dominated industry” as often as possible. If they are ever confronted with feedback or issues that women experience in the workplace, no matter how serious or valid, they avoid it because it’s a “landmine that they don’t want to step on.” If you’re young and just starting out in your career, you will likely not be given any respect or reward for your knowledge, efforts, or contributions.
Despite that engineers and managers are among the favored at this company, even they are underpaid based on industry standards. Ford is constantly losing employees in all departments, including their profit center, to the point where most of the workers on job sites are overwhelmed and bogged down with workloads hefty enough for multiple employees. If someone points out turnover being a problem, the response from upper management is that “some turnover is healthy” and “in a construction industry, this much turnover is normal” and “we don’t really have a turnover problem.” Ford often fails to take accountability for any of its problems—there is always something or someone else to blame.
Ford does not trust anyone, let alone its own staff. Prepare for constant scrutiny and questioning by those at the tippy-top of the food chain, regardless of how low you rank. Employees in HR are not given access to all the information they need to do their jobs due to distrust, resulting in constant delays. You may leave for work one evening and come back to find that someone on the senior leadership team has torn apart an email you’ve already sent, or a spreadsheet that only you were using, asking you to make changes because they don’t like your wording. “This heading should say 'approval,' not 'approved.' Don’t use the word 'attitude,' use 'demeanor' instead. Say 'ensure,' not 'be sure' or 'make sure.'”
And don’t even think about asking to work remotely. If you’re approved (which you probably won’t be), you will be required to provide multiple forms of proof that you were, in fact, working the whole time…but that’s pretty normal for Ford, given that even salaried employees are required to clock in each day AND submit a detailed timesheet. There is also no parental leave policy, strict PTO rules, and a bereavement leave policy that I would describe as cold and insensitive.
Need experience with good software for your chosen career path? Nope, not here. Instead, you will work exclusively with a system called Anita that looks like something you might see in a Stranger Things episode. You know, the show that takes place in the 1980s. I came to Ford thinking this was a technology company where I would be working with cutting-edge systems...I was convinced my coworkers were pulling a prank on me when they showed Anita to me on my first day.
There may come a day where you feel that you need a raise and a performance review, and chances are, you will have to fight for both of those things yourself. Ford does reviews for employees based on “merit,” which means that if you don’t ask for a review yourself, and your manager doesn’t agree that you deserve one…you might not get one for years. What’s worse is that even once HR starts your review, it’ll still be months before it actually happens, and there is very little transparency as to why the process takes so long. Many employees quit before their review even comes to pass. Leadership is aware that reviews are one of the top complaints employees have at Ford, but the process has yet to change. The best way to make sure your review gets done is to pester HR with follow-up messages until leadership realizes you’re frustrated and finally do their part.
It's hard not to feel like the company is greedy with the way they pinch pennies. It’s well-concealed greed disguised as frugality. The office is unclean, the desk chairs are old and uncomfortable, and every single object purchased by the company is attached to a fixed asset number and assigned to the employee considered responsible for it. That could include anything from your laptop to the plastic trash can under your desk. The silliest place I ever found a fixed asset sticker was on the back of a new pack of sticky notes. Ford hosts celebratory lunches for the major holidays and will pay for the main course, but condiments, sides, desserts, and drinks are all paid for by the employees who are kind enough to volunteer and purchase them. I once witnessed the maintenance team taking leftover soda cans from a holiday party and stocking them in the break room vending machine…where employees would then purchase them back from Ford, despite the fact that Ford didn’t spend a dime on those drinks in the first place. They intended to make a profit from drinks their employees bought out of generosity.
All the one-star reviews you will read on this Glassdoor page are true. It isn't just disgruntled employees coming here to vent and “air out their dirty laundry”...people are telling you the truth on here. From what I understand, the executive team at Ford has gone out of their way to try and improve the Glassdoor rating—not by improving any policies or making effective changes, but by asking employees to write positive reviews and calling Glassdoor to claim the negative reviews aren’t true, probably hoping there’s a way to get them removed. They don’t want you to see what is on this page. It may be true that engineers can come to Ford and learn a lot about the AV industry before they take the next big step in their careers, but if you're looking for anything corporate? Do yourself a favor and learn from our mistakes.
