I believe the biggest source of Ford AV's current pitfalls are most of the management over 50, mostly excluding Mr. & Mrs. Ford, but they can be part of the problem sometimes. The senior level management (that are mostly about 10 years away from retirement) tend to be distrustful, manipulative, and set an expectation that you will come to work whenever called upon regardless of what you have going on in your personal life (such as Mother's Day weekend - true story). "The company" comes first always. They will expect you to add your email account to your smart phone (not paid for by the company), and check it regularly in the evenings and on the weekend. I have also seen them change dates on company events (Christmas) to try and discourage people from bringing their families so they don't have to pay to buy food for your wife and kids. Although, in fairness, I believe that's just a couple of the old guard that would do something that despicable. The younger management group have never done anything like that to my knowledge.
PTO - Ford AV's PTO program is less than what most companies these days are typically giving their employees. Case in point - within my first 90 days at my new position, I will have accrued as much PTO as someone who was worked 1 full year at Ford AV. And that's just the beginning. It would take someone working 15 years at Ford AV to accrue as much PTO as I will in my first year at my current job.
Salary - You will be paid less than other professionals working at your skill level at other companies, unless you are hourly and can work 20-30 hours of OT. If you are salaried (i.e., exempt from OT), the only benefit is accruing 2-3 days of PTO more per year more than hourly (non-exempt) employees. And they will leverage that fact that you are salaried over you without giving you any of the benefits of being salaried. If you have to work extra to get your job done, you do not get paid for it. And if you work 12 hours on a Monday, or even 4-6 hours on a Sunday, you get no benefit from that during the week. You are required to get 8 hours a day, or use PTO. (You theoretically can get 7.25 hours on your time sheet as a salaried employee without having to use PTO, but the management I worked for frowned on this even when I had worked over 40 hours that week.) Of course, most of the division managers are likely making over 6 figures, but your salary affects their bottom line, so the cheaper they can get you, the better chance they have of hitting their alleged "under budget" bonus I always heard about. Seems ridiculous to incentivize (whether intentionally or unintentionally) paying your employees a lower wage. When I left, I received a 5-digit increase over my Ford AV annual salary to take a job that was basically the same job title.
Blame - Depending on who you work for, be prepared for issues with blame. One of my supervisors had a habit of telling you to do one thing, then forgetting that's what he told you to do and grilling you as to why you did what you did a week or two later. So if you have a conversation with a manager and they instruct you to do something, I highly recommend that you immediately return to your computer (or smartphone), and send an email that says "just to follow up on our conversation today, I wanted to confirm that you would like me to do X Y Z." Doing that can save you from an HR write up. And to tag on to that theme...
Keeping Their Promises - If you have a conversation where something is told to you regarding how much you will be getting paid, any special arrangements you are making, or anything regarding a possible promotion, make sure you get. it. documented. I saw multiple co-workers that were promised reviews, raises, or even the amount of their salary and had those things changed or "forgotten" because they weren't in writing. And even then, there are no guarantees as the Mr. & Mrs. can adjust your compensation package whenever they like. Which leads to...
Profit Sharing (Excluding Sales/Account Managers) - Ignore this. If you start making $5k - $10k on a regular basis from your profit sharing, expect that to change. They have done some type of "research" that told them that your incentive pay shouldn't be more than about 15% of your salary, and they might cap your individual profit sharing checks to make sure they don't exceed that amount. If they don't, and you keep knocking it out of the park, they get antsy about writing big checks, so they'll probably take the risk that you might leave and decrease your profit sharing. Apparently too much success is a bad thing, so make sure you don't blow it all up at once. (Again, excluding Sales/Account Managers.) However, applying to everyone is the "golden handcuffs" program as it's called. They take this seriously and don't appreciate anyone pointing out any of it's flaws, whether it be sincere or in jest. Basically they set back half of every profit sharing dollar you make for 7 years. It is tied to the value of the company, which has been going up steadily every year, and then it gets paid out to you at that amount. You have not choice in whether or not your profit sharing is tied to this program, and if you leave before you have received a check, they keep all of your money. The only exceptions are retirement (at age 65 or older) or death.
And last but not least...
Fake Glassdoor reviews. This is just silly. Spend time investing in your employees rather than soliciting disingenuous Glassdoor reviews from your managers. Make Ford AV a happy place to work where employees feel compensated well and they feel like their home life is more important to the company than their work life. Once you've done that, send an email to everyone in the company asking them to write a review on Glassdoor if they like working at Ford AV. Then you'll see a significant bump in your rating.
