Levi Strauss reviews

Sometimes Levi's is too big for their own good-- projects sometimes get muddled with management or turned upside down the longer they take to achieve. I also felt like a lot of teams are in silos from one another (brands all operate separately, for example)-- so collaborative work can be hard unless you're brought together for a project.

The matrix org structure does not lend itself to empowering decision makers, or being accountable. Everyone has to be happy, regardless of what the best decision is. Makes great ideas watered down after 12 people weigh in on them. Can't focus on something for more than 18 months, so you never get new ideas off the ground. Too many meetings with too many people in the room. No respect for people's time. Overall, these are symptoms of what I see as lack of quality management and/or management training. I watched too many individual contributors, who were great at DOING their job become managers and not be able to step up as a leader of a team. Always falling back on what they knew best, which is how to DO the job. This is a problem for young, talented employees. They will never feel empowered when their boss doesn't know how to manage them or guide them down a career path.