Starkey reviews

3.4

61% would recommend to a friend

(443 total reviews)
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Brandon Sawalich

45% approve of CEO

39% positive business outlook

Starkey has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 443 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Starkey 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

443 reviews
2.0
Oct 17, 2012

Great potential, poor execution

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Starkey has many bright and motivated individuals working towards a common goal of helping others improve their ability to hear and communicate. Nice amenities at work and benefits are generally competitive across the industry. Free parking

Cons

Management positions are awarded to those who can 'play the game' as effectively as possible, not to those who generally produce for the company. Middle management routinely kisses up and kicks down, often using the ideas of their subordinates, relying on those around them to generate solutions and presenting projects/products to upper management as their own. Starkey promotes sizzle, not steak. This surface understanding of their employees leads upper management to work hard at creating an environment of innovation without connecting directly to - and rewarding - those (relatively few) individuals who actually do generate content. Much time and money is wasted on the process of capable employees maneuvering around obstacles (middle managers) in order to meet deadlines. At best, middle management gets out the way (but never leads or generates the vision), at worst management actively sabotages efforts that may take the spotlight off them. Classic passive aggressive and narcissistic work environment. Too few people doing far too much while others use up precious resources without producing anything. Fast tracking a few through management positions, letting others languish for years without career advancement. Extremely tight deadlines with too few capable people has led to questionable product quality.

4.0
Jun 13, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Friendly Staff,Professional Ethics and Good Hierarchy

Cons

Personal growth is really a problem...salary hike not properly done...Roles and responsibilities not defined

4.0
May 20, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Starkey is stable and makes money. Many people have worked most if not all of their careers here, and they could certainly do worse. It's family oriented. Literally. It seems like husband/wife or father/son working at Starkey is quite common. It seems like a great environment if your background is audiology or digital signal processing or RF engineering especially if you have an advanced degree in one of those disciplines. The company is conservatively managed so they weathered the 2008 recession reasonably well. Pay and benefits are competitive. The revenue sharing plan is a nice recent addition. EP is a large campus with decent amenities including two cafeterias. The hiring process is pretty strong so there are very few bad employees.

Cons

On some projects, processes are weak. Multi-million dollar projects are kicked off with documentation lacking. It seems in some instances Starkey doesn't understand or doesn't believe that the earlier you find defects the cheaper it is to fix them. Creating documents with an adequate level of detail and then reviewing them with the appropriate people is a good way to identify these problems early. Key projects/products have been outsourced, creating a void of knowledge among those that maintain the product. Outsourcing results have been disappointing, ending up with significant development still performed in-house. Short grey cubicles made out of cheap countertop material - made in-house for some reason. In many areas these cubes are crammed so close together that only one person can walk the aisle between them. There's virtually no place to store your technical books so they get left at home. The revenue sharing is definitely nice, but not always equitable. What I mean is that you are much better off if you contribute a little to every program release than if you contribute heavily to one program release only. The formula that is used will cap the amount given to an individual for any one program release. This means someone who works on an 18-month project will get a bonus only for that program release and it is very likely to be capped. Another employee who works on 3 6-month programs may put in the same level of effort in those 18 months, but will receive 3 smaller bonuses totaling more than the first employee's bonus because they never hit the cap. The 401k/ESOP match is given in company stock. This is not ideal because the company is private (i.e. the stock price changes once a year) and because you end up having too much invested in one company. You depend on Starkey for a paycheck and now you depend on Starkey for investment returns (and the hearing aid industry is likely slow growth). I'd rather have the 401k/ESOP match under my control to invest somewhere else. Starkey is not going to end up like Enron, but you get the general idea of why you want to diversify. New employees must also wait a long time before they are eligible to even participate with their own contributions - sometimes up to a year. Vacation time is good but not as generous as it sounds because Starkey observes fewer holidays than most companies - 6 versus 8-10 in some places.

Viewing 436 - 438 of 443 Reviews

Glassdoor has 516 Starkey reviews submitted anonymously by Starkey employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Starkey is right for you.