PACCAR reviews

3.7

63% would recommend to a friend

(1,041 total reviews)
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Preston Feight

72% approve of CEO

52% positive business outlook

PACCAR has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 1,041 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The PACCAR employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
2.0
Jan 28, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There are opportunities to move from job to job and gain experience in different areas. From engineering, to marketing, to sales. If you want to change things up, it's possible. Paccar will also invest in training their employees, so for a young person it's a decent place to start and get some credentials. Tuition reimbursement is ok, but isn't as good as some other businesses in the area: Paccar will pay 1/2 of the tuition for classes that relate to your job. People are generally hard working and reasonably smart. Not too many duds. Also not a horrible place to maintain work/life balance. Paccar still offers a pension, which is pretty rare these days.

Cons

Now for the bad... The worst thing about working here is the pay scale. It's horribly inconsistent! Some people move up rather quickly, while others slog along and don't receive the compensation they deserve. It's not uncommon for a recent hire of 1-2 years to make more than someone who's been there much longer. The culture that is bred here also promotes keeping one's salary private, so these inconsistencies can go unnoticed by most. They claim to give promotions based on performance, but those who good employees who meet expectations can expect to get salary increases that don't keep up with inflation. If you are looking to move up the pay scale, expect to work lots of overtime with little/no extra compensation. Supervisors are expected to work long hours. Extremely conservative culture! Employees are expected to look the part, which means a white shirt and tie for males. Facial hair is severely frowned upon (except the standard mustache). Those who don't conform, don't stand much chance of moving up the ladder. Benefits: If you think your vacation benefits are safe here, think again. Senior management will occasionally mandate that employees take some vacation. One can only assume this is to rid the books of vacation liabilities to meet earnings goals, but it sure sucks to be forced to take vacation that you have been saving. The moral of the story? Paccar will do whatever is required to make money. The bottom line is more important than employee satisfaction. If you work here, expect to get sucker punched from time to time. Sick leave, paternity leave, and extended sick leave policies are also not as generous as other companies in the area.

2.0
Nov 6, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-A few great people/peers -Transit pass for commuting partially subsidized -401k 5% matching

Cons

-Engineers spend 80% of their time on non-engineering activities such as making PowerPoints, attending conference calls & harassing suppliers regarding cost & timing related matters (to name a few) -Too many layers of middle management, all bumbling to distort reality to conform with the Chairman's ideas on what it is or should be. --Afraid to fail, so failures are covered up or purported to be external --Importance is relative & transient. Mostly owing to the Chairman's fickle whims (i.e. the "Eye of Sauron") -Mediocre monetary compensation for someone working 40 hrs/week, let alone the actual 50+ expected -Conservative by every measure. Both in the social format of the workplace and in the willingness to expend resources toward a new idea not guaranteed to contribute to next quarter's profits -Outsourcing any actual engineering to suppliers (always the lowest bidder and/or currently in favor with Corporate Purchasing) or to India. Quality usually suffers, and engineers morph into project managers forced to ride those doing the work but with little opportunity to build any true expertise on the material. Expertise & responsibility are maligned terms, with the former presupposed on the latter & the latter nebulously defined/allocated. -Promotion to level of incompetence: Capable and reliable colleagues are rare, as those demonstrating such tendencies are either promoted elsewhere or make the determination that PACCAR is not for him/her. While not true of all, at least 60% of employees have resigned to donning a brain slug along with the tie and rely on apathy as a coping mechanism. Motivation for most is probably best summarized by, "what is the minimum amount I need to do to have the fewest number of people riding my back to get what they want?"

2.0
Aug 2, 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people you work with are awesome. Its really great being able to interact with people from all different backgrounds, people with engineering degrees, technical degrees, and masters degrees. I like taking breaks and stopping by the shop and talking with the mechanics that work on the vehicles and getting their honest opinions about everything.

Cons

Many of the managers constantly talk down to you, they're a few awesome ones, but they're far too many that are worthless and managers have nearly 100% job security, they never get fired or laid off. HR is worthless. if you complain about something you're going to be the first one gone during hard times. Recently they announced we can no longer save emails so when you have history with a project or a CYA (cover your a$$) email, those will all be gone. After 12 months they'll be auto-deleted. You move around often so when a new guy in your former position comes to ask about a project, you can no longer give them a good head start or advice where to begin.

Viewing 112 - 114 of 1,041 Reviews

Glassdoor has 1,215 PACCAR reviews submitted anonymously by PACCAR employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if PACCAR is right for you.