Unfortunately, these company reviews will be slanted towards negative reviews because you're more motivated write them if you're a disgruntled employee rather than a happy one. This is certainly the case for me.
Management at Starkey is very poor. It's almost out of a 1950's sitcom where the boss knows what right and he'll be more than happy to belittle you to demonstrate it. The management at Starkey is essentially a different "class" from the direct reports. All managers sit in private glass walled offices while the reports sit in cubes that are too small for many of us to work out of. The managers attend numerous meetings and training sessions that the reports have no involvement with, or have any way to find out what's being discussed. The management "sticks together". If you complain about a manager to another manager, it'll get back to you and cause you problems.
When I started working there, I was told that it was a very "top down" place to work. I had never heard that phrase before and it took me awhile to realize that it mean "micromanaged". They don't say "micromanaged" because it gets management upset.
Starkey is an unusual place to work at. It's privately owned by one guy and the place makes one product: hearing aids. The owner has a reputation for being a major jerk, firing people on the spot if they disagree with him too much. I heard a story of one guy who was "promoted" to work closely with him, but instead of taking the promotion, he quit the company saying "Better to quit today than be fired tomorrow." This authoritarian culture pretty much runs down through the entire organization and creates a management culture of "salute and run" mentality. This has really stifled innovation. Starkey is a "technology follower" in the hearing aid industry. So much so that they company tries to pitch themselves as "We may not be the first ones out with a new technology, but we take our time and get it right so we have the best technology." Ah, ok. (And no, it's not the best, the other companies have gone on and improved their offerings...)
The company is extremely SLOW at executing new designs and technologies. Part of it is just the mentality that it simply takes "years to do stuff", but another part seems to be that the company got burned by screwing up their hearing aids so many times in past that they're super cautious about what they put into them today. Very slow and cautious about every step, and of course the managers make all of the decisions.
I suppose I have to rub it in that the owner fired the president and a hand full of senior executives from the company for "wrong doing". I suppose when the CEO-owner treats you poorly and wants to replaces you with his 30-something son-in-law after you've worked there 35 years, even the president of the company is lead to do some really stupid stuff.
You can get "up to" a 3% bonus which management pitches as an awesome thing, but it's hard to get too excited about it I used to get 15% bonuses at other jobs. After a the best earnings year ever, they raised the bonus earnings threshold for the next year and so the employees got less a 1% bonus even though actual earnings exceeded the previous "best earnings ever" year. Not the best way to keep you motivated for a little bonus.
So all in all, Starkey was the worse place I worked at. Great people to work with, but management that makes you hate your job. This was my experience at any rate. Unfortunately I can't recommend the company.
