Pacific Gas and Electric Reviews

Pros – Good pay, cannot complain about the wages as it was a comfortable living as long as you are not in a peon job.

Cons – Beware of certain bosses, they talk about you to your co-workers behind your back then give you a lousy review as if you did something wrong!

Advice to Senior Management – Don't buddy up with the co-workers and discriminate against certain people for being white. You are setting yourself up for a lawsuit.

Pros – - Decent pay, benefits.
- Lots of churn, sometimes creates opportunities
- Seems pretty fair in terms of HR practices, focus on diversity, ergonomics, safety.

Cons – - Feels bureacratic
- Incompetence isn't punished
- Lots of hierarchy, upper mgmt doesn't feel accessible
- Lots of churn, can create continuity issues
- Slow moving.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't exactly love the place but don't hate my life either. I think one of the few things that keeps people around is the decent benefits. Beyond that, I haven't met too many people who love their job. It's about 1/10 who seem content. Same advice for any big org. Cut the fat, push out weak managers and employees. Drive to root cause of issues, stop trying to get blanket policies to solve problems, only seems to paper over the problems. Etc etc. This is more of caution to prospective employees. It's stable. You probably won't find it very exciting, unless you're in a group that constantly reorgs and its probably the wrong kind of excitement but it pays the bills and seems like more than half of the people are planning on ending their career here for the pension so don't expect anyone to rock the boat in an innovative or exciting way. Can't blame em, its just human interest and the company is structured to be a very middle of the road comfortable way to retire. If you want to get rich, come back as a contractor.

Pros – Telecommuting; salaries are good for starers or those without a degree - not so good if you are already high in the pay scale and coming in; benefits are better than some private sector, pension plan. If you are focused - good work/life balance.

Cons – Managers and up are jumping around with demands out of fear - not a good mid-management set up. The demands shift all over the place and take up too much of the day. Generally weak middle management. Low-balling the salaries for new hires and managers. Hard to hear you came in at top step when you didn't. Work is too focused on meeting odd measures of productivity - all for the bonus.

Advice to Senior Management – Change the metrics of bonus measurements - ie: injury reporting and numeric scales that only measure a small aspect of work that employees really have no control over. The daily work gets driven by these poor scales. Pay well from the start. Too insular and averse to new ideas.

Pros – If you like working at slow and safe pace, where changes generally go at a turtle's pace then this is the place you want to work at. Pay is good, benefits are good, and the people that work here are good.

Cons – The pace is too slow caused mostly by communication issues. The company is very top heavy, those at the bottom will generally be pushed aside by management in critical projects. A utility company should and needs to listen to the folks on the ground. There is a general lack of standardization and sharing of information which ultimately are communcation issues that can really slow a company down during important changes caused by government regulations or natural disasters.

Advice to Senior Management – A system of standization is needed. There is also a need to greatly emphasize the sharing of information between employees and employment. Every project should only have people that are 100% committed to the project, this speeds up the project by providing better organization and ensuring that resources are appropriately allocated towards the completion of the project. In other words, get the project done on time, on budget, and with no BS or extra sugar.

Pros – The people you work with are very dedicated and passionate about what they do. You have a chance to help a shifting and changing industry with some very innovative technologies.

Cons – Things can be very bureaucratic. Getting simple things done could be very cumbersome due to the budget structure and silos of different organizations.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen actively to your employees, focus on quality and getting things right the first time.

Pros – Excellent Benefits, Ability to advance, Career oriented.

Cons – Very slow moving, tons of bureaucracy, difficult to effect change from the bottom up.

Advice to Senior Management – Excitement and morale building efforts over very high level achievements are not effective for ground level workers. Additionally, quite a few of our efforts are very "one size fits all," including some educational efforts that are overkill for office based employees.

Pros – Employees have a sense of mission, dedication to serving the customer base. The fundamentals of the company are solid and it obtains energy from hydro, coal, gas, and nuclear. Working toward integrating alternative energy sources.

Cons – Regulatory structure inhibits innovation, raises costs, but that is par for the course with regulated companies. Perhaps a bigger problem is that the company is too inbred at least in IT org. IT leadership has changed recently, but it remains to be seen if innovation follows. Change is slow and difficult for many to handle.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep working to integrate outside perspectives and experiences. Congrats on effective dealings with reg bodies.

Pros – Lots of opportunity to advance within a large company environment.

Cons – Lots of reorganization, which can be a good thing for some positions. For others, it could mean transition out of the company.

Pros – Exceptional employer for benefits, medical, education, holidays, and vacation. Educational opportunity excellent. You will be offered the opportunity to use your abilities and grow.

Cons – Slow moving large company. Just replaced many senior executives that were milking the money from shareholders. Management does not look at prior job skills, and you must look to join company as entry level or senior level - juniors would be well advised to movfe up the management ladder at another corporation and then apply here for parallel move.

Advice to Senior Management – Management has very poor resource management ability. They need better tools to manage the growth pipeline and not bombarb their employees with 6 months of 10/hr a day-6 day a week overtime and then 6 months of twidling their thumbs.

Pros – Great people, great opportunities. PGE has been business for a long time and has provided life-time careers for many people. The average tenur is well over 20 years.

Cons – Business decisions often are driven by political drivers and union related support. The corporation is strong, but is struggling with an aging workforce.