NBCUniversal reviews

As a former employee with the Walt Disney Company and many leaders in the service industry, I am very dissapointed with this companies culture, specific to senior management in theme park operations! The "value" of the supervisors is determined by their success with respect to administrative tasks rather than what is truly important: "guest service, team member development and satisfaction." Supervisors are recognized, rewarded and promoted, based on a monthly system of administrative tasks. They are very inundated with these tasks and require the majority of their shift be spent at a computer. The senior managers expect the supervisors to spend most their time doing park duty coverage and not at a computer or in an office; a bit too impossible to balance when given the amount of tasks expected! As a result, the supervisors have to work many extra hours beyond their shifts trying to play catch up. The end result: priorities are backwards, moral is poor and guest service suffers. There is also too much emphasis on disciplinary action and the senior managers encourage an environment of reprimand over the park radio. Discipline is something that should be done one on one, while praise should be offered in an open forum. Furthermore, senior management does not truly recognize the strong service performing supervisors and are more apt to point out their flaws. Meanwhile, the supervisors who excel at their tasks, but are rarely seen in the park or providing any service, are the ones who are applauded. Just another example of a backwards culture whose priorities are not in line with what creates success. Additionally, when the supervisors are not heard over the radio calling out flaws of team members, cleanliness or quality issues at the attractions, they are said by senior management to be "flying below the radar." Lastly, senior management review their leaders based on perception rather than concrete facts. Team moral is consistently down and the respect towards upper management continues to drop by not only the supervisors, but the front line team members and leads. Most of their senior managers have been raised in this culture since high school and are lacking a well - rounded working background. When supervisors from the outside come in, their ideas are not respected and often are treated like an outcast. Senior management tries to mandate an environment of "do it our way" and are not open to other ideas that might work. The operations senior managers are rarely in the park and have no idea what is truly happening. They are likely to walk the park once or twice a week at most and base their "perception" solely on what they observe. The majority of the time, they manager their team of supervisors from their office through a radio. They also hire high school gradautes to work duty manager shifts placing these inexperienced managers in charge of the parks. Where is the quality in all this? The Walt Disney Company and NBC Universal are truly nothing alike and this goes to show why Disney has more sucess alone just within park operations. Disney has created a culture based on guest service and satisfaction, whereas Universal values a task driven environment. I ask...what guest cares what happens backstage in an office?

- Only 4 tickets per year to be used across ALL Universal parks, with all required to be used on the same day - Nearly EVERYONE complains about the company and the work they do on a daily basis, bringing the overall energy to a slump - Nearly ALL content is outsourced to third-party production companies, meaning that unless you are at the very top, you rarely get to interact with the actual content itself - Long days with inconsistent hours, making it hard to plan your personal schedule more than a day ahead of time (i.e. you won’t know you need to work overtime until the overtime starts, and the overtime ranges from 5 minutes to over 3 hours) - Constant technology fails and outages with an outsourced IT department that can be difficult to reach/is unfamiliar with the dynamics on the teams - NO RAISES AFTER SEVERAL YEARS and VERY low compensation compared to other companies and similar positions - Sterile and boring company/corporate culture with lots of basic corporate jargon and TONS of corporate red tape; workstations are also boring with next to no personality, with most workstations being cramped with zero natural lighting - Most fun opportunities and screeners are sweepstakes only, meaning you can’t attend several events that the company boasts about - EXTREMELY high turnover of employees depending on the department (some have had the same employees for years, others have had nearly ten in nine months) - Teams are very fragmented from one another and operate in small groups; next to no synergy/interaction among teams — you might not even meet people on an adjacent team for several months unless you make a great effort to do so - Poor management and poor communication between different levels of executives which results in lower-end workers receiving mixed messages about policies, tasks, etc; lots of disorganization on the corporate/HR side of things as well - HR tracks badge swipes so flexibility on working remotely when sick or having appointments can be difficult Requirement to be in offices even for roles that are done with little to no social interaction - Management styles differ greatly from team to team, with some having ZERO structure and some being overly micromanaged - Upper management tends to talk badly about their direct reports, including profanity and talking poorly of work ethic - More dedicated employees are held to a higher standard than those who slack off (hard work is rewarded with more work whereas those who slack get by watching movies or playing video games all day) - Many concerns that get raised in the workplace take awhile to address, with things mostly being done to protect the company’s image instead of their workers; additionally, simple tasks take FOREVER to complete due to corporate policies - Too many people are hired for the same role, resulting in a lack of team organization and not enough work to justify the long days - Heavy reliance on contractors to do work; these contractors do not get paid vacation or holidays and often receive lower pay than full-time employees - Not much opportunity for growth and upward mobility