Norfolk Southern Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than a year

Pros – good company to work for

Cons – hours are sometimes hard to deal with

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern

Pros – Pay, co workers, travel, benefits, retirement

Cons – Move alot, disconnection with management

Advice to Senior Management – more connection

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern as a contractor for more than 7 years

Pros – Fortune 500 company with reasonable budgets for capital investments. Relatively stable company which is not as affected by economic downturns.

Cons – There is a toxic culture of dishonesty, hypocrisy, sketchy agreements, lack of accountability and negative politics throughout the IT Leadership. Promotions are tenure-based -- not merit based. Performers are punished rather than rewarded.

This environment attracts under-performers looking for an easy pension. Management is unwilling/unable to compensate top level talent with competitive salary ranges. Skilled IT-resources move on to better organizations while under-performers stay until retirement resulting in a perpetual "brain drain".

As an organization, there is no desire to be anywhere but the middle or rear of the "pack" in regards to IT capabilities. Until a major cultural change occurs, this company's IT Department will always be an industry-lagger rather than industry-leader.

Advice to Senior Management – Change the culture. (start with Forbes article: "The Key to Changing Organizational Culture")

Attract, reward and retain top-talent. (start with Dice article: "30 Ways to Attract or Repel the Very Best Employees in Tech")

The rest will happen naturally...

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern for less than a year

Pros – Excellent environment for interns. No deadline pressure.

Cons – Overall good experience. They don't give big responsibility to co ops

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern full-time

Pros – A company looking to find itself = plenty of advancement opportunities. Innovation is encouraged and rewarded. Many perks for employees that hopefully will survive in a down economy. Senior management gets out from behind their desk more than I've seen from other large companies. It's great they are willing to share a portion of their workday. That produces unseen, but very valuable returns.

Cons – There are many philosophical policy changes taking place in personnel, IT infrastructure, etc., needless to say, it is chaos at times. People are pushed to reach their fullest potential, so it is quite competitive, bordering on tarnishing the teamwork they are attempting to create. Feels like a shark tank at times, but that's why they are successful.

Advice to Senior Management – Some of these changes are behaviorial and systemic of an industry and generation (babyboomers), so do not give up when the gains stall. Stay the course.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Norfolk Southern full-time for less than a year

Pros – The job involves a lot of down time. It's a pretty easy job. The pay is excellent. They train you thoroughly since they are investing a lot of money in you, they don't want you to fail.

Cons – The hours suck. But they do tell you that up front. There's also the danger. There's no way to get an appreciation for how fast a train going 55mph feels when it flies by you while you're standing a few feet away assembling another train. Kinda spooky first few times it happens.

Advice to Senior Management – Communicate with trainees a little better so that they know exactly what is expected of them as far as hours and "homework" for classes

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Health Insurance was good for the first few years when we had no co pay, then we started paying 300+ a month for it. Descent pay check ,

Cons – Worked on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week, all weekends and holiday's, with no extra pay for working holiday. No time at all for family, they called you back to work after 10 hours rest, and you spent from 36 to 40 hours gone at a time. 120+ days a year in a hotel room. No where near enough pay for every thing you sacrifice. They always find a way to beat you out of your bonus's and you never got a pat on the back for working your hind end off. Always hiding in the bushes trying to catch you breaking a rule. Management at the local level was terrible. Twelve years of this and I called it quits!

Advice to Senior Management – Give a fellow a Pat on the back once in a while, all we ever get is the negative. The only time you see a Supervisor was to tell you how you needed to do more and do better. Hire people in management that have a clue, the college grads you hire right out of college know nothing about the railroad, and they are suppose to be able to help you and 99% of the time I had forgotten more than they even knew about railroading!!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern full-time

Pros – The work is not very hard and the pay is good.

Cons – The different shifts and odd hours worked.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern

Pros – security, community, ballance, and service

Cons – antiquated culture, resistance to progress and process improvement

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Norfolk Southern as an intern for less than a year

Pros – quick response for the on line application

Cons – complicated interview process, need to be on line, fly from MD to GA even I have classes at night

Advice to Senior Management – please reduce the type of the interview into practical skills such as programming and the IQ test but not the GRE verbal test, it gave a little bit unfair to international applicants if they do not know the meaning of the words.