Con Edison Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – This is a steady, secure job with a great salary and great benefits. If you want to advance and do a good job, you can. If you want to spend the rest of your job in the same position, you can do that too.

Cons – We have too few vacation days, many poor/underperforming employees cannot be easily removed from their posts. Lot of favoritism and nepotism impacting hiring and promotion decisions.

Advice to Senior Management – Provide more feedback and lay off unproductive and underqualified employees. It is too dificult to fire someone, even a poor performer.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – 1. If you were hired in 2002-2005 in the union you get a real pension after 30 years - not many places offer such thing these days, but you must be there 30 years at least.
2. Job is stable and secure if you don't do anything stupid and follow all their rules and policies to the letter.
3. ConEd also offers a 401(k) that they match partially - max match for union is about $1200/annum
4. Medical benefits are ok, but they are getting worse and more expensive.

Cons – Takes forever to get a promotion if you don't know somebody. But, if you are someone's relaive - promotions come at the lightspeed regadless of your lack of qualification, and against all the rules and policies that Con Edison is asking everyone to follow.
Very old school management practices. Ones at the bottom of the corporate ladder always get the blame for errors made by upper and middle management. Very top-heavy company. There is one supervisor for every 2-3 union employees who do the work - typical for Con Edison. As the saying goes: one guy's working, ten are watching - very true for this company. Most supervisors barely have a HS diploma and possess no or very little technical knowledge and expertise, they are not there to help you or answer your questions, they are there to watch your every move and it seems they have pleasure doing that.
Very litte acation time - nothing the year you are hired, 5 or 10 days (depending on the month of hire) next year, and 10 days until you get 5 full years, after that you get 15 days/ammun, that also increases a little once you hit 12 years, and so on. Max. vacation now is 26 days - you get that after 30+ years.
Very unflexible on any additional time off that you may need for personal/emergency issues - once you are out of your vacation days - you get nothing till end of the year no matter what your situation is.

Advice to Senior Management – It takes several years and several tests for a union employee to get to the next title, and most of the new hires do have engineering degrees that are related to their work. However, the situation with management and supervisory employees seems to be quite different. One can become a supervisor because his father or uncle or father-in-law is a ConEd manager, and have no applicable education. This is wrong and you guys know that!!! Yet, you pretend that everything is fine!!!
My suggestion:
1.Get rid of engineering supervisors who do not have engineering degrees.
2.Create real testing produres for management employees - if they cannot pass the test - they should not be promoted or kept in the company.
3.This is, as Mr. Burke said, a "pipes and wires company", thus all manegement, expept departments like accounting, hr, facilities, must, as a condition of employment posses high level of engineering expertise, e.g. mandatory PE licenses for managers, mandatory bachelor in engineering for engineering supervisors, etc.
4.Make the Ombudsman office work in the proper way. Today it is simply a part of the "old boys club" that governs the company. Everything that you tell the office about improper things that your manager done is not investigated properly - it is simply let known to the manager, as well as who complained, etc, the the person who made the complaint faces intimidation, harassement, and retaliation - although the Corporate policies strictly prohibit such beahvior.
5.Take control of the hiring and promotional procedures - people should not be hired/promoted because they know somebody and don't know anything realted to the job.
6. Reduce supervisors - they are simply overpaid attendance takers who don't know anyting about the job and do not teach people that report to them anything.

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – Con Edison offers a good benefits package, a competitive salary and offers a union for weekly paid employees. Management positions are available for various employees and as a transition will soon be taking place where the top talent will be needed for the company as many employees retire now is the time to apply if you are qualified.

Cons – Some of the management employees that have been there for years are not as competent as they should be but have obtained their positions because of loyalty to the company. The company needs more work/life balance for new employees because they are at a period where they are competing for the top talent.

Advice to Senior Management – Con Edison is about to change as many employees are about to retirement. Recruitment and selection will soon be a major issue for union positions as well as management positions. The top talent needs to be recruited and management employees need more training on issues pertaining to how to manage/supervise employees.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – The benefits (health, eye, dental, disability, 401k, discount stock, vaaction and sick pay) and job security (no lay-offs and great programs to help substance abusers get back on their feet) are good. Constant listings of job opprtunities throughout the company allow for some movement (there are restrictions on length of time in a postion before you can move again)

Cons – Very beaurocratic (everything requires multiple levels of approvals, there are procedures upon procedures that are not used in the best sense- for training and standardized service - but instead are used in the most negative sense - for disciplinary action); It is slow to adopt new processes (again, many reviewers and multiple rounds of comments as well as well as culture with entrenched behavior from people doing the same job for many years); No entreprenurial spirit, lots of people marking time to retirement.

Advice to Senior Management – Do you promote productivity changes? Do you reward cost cutting and effieciency?

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – its a stable job with variety of opportunities to move around within the company. there is a lot of pride within the company. the benefits are great, other than the salary the medical insurance is very good. they also have a discount stock program which i think is a great way to save money and at the same time be concerned about what is going on within the company. this brings up the pride that i have by working here. the people working here are also very friendly and helpful. sometime i wonder what drives people to be so nice to eachother

Cons – there are not many challenging work that are faced by the employees. this is one of the things that i had to get used to, but once i did it was no longer an issue. there's a certain pace at which everything is conducted and if you are on the same level then you will be comfortable working here. even though the work itself isnt very keenly scrutinized other things such as accurate time keeping and such matter are very important. so basically getting to work on time is more important than what i do for the 8 hrs that i spend here.

Advice to Senior Management – retention should be enforced. people move around a lot between positions

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – - New York - best city in the world!
- At least what you do results in a product people need (electricity)!
- Strong culture

Cons – - Hard to break in to the "insiders" club
- Poor internal IT services
- Facilities at HQ are more than a little antiquated
- Military style decision making - chain of command is sacrosanct
- Emphasis on operations results in strange payment traditions - first line supervisors make more than some senior managers in staff positions

Advice to Senior Management – - No Vice President of Sales or Marketing? Really?
- Pick a strategy, any strategy - but the current non-strategy (do nothing) isn't too inspiring

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – It's a stable company, even through the current financial crisis the company manages to turn a profit. In no other company will you have such job safety and there are decent benefits. Good place to land a career if you don't have a degree and don't plan on getting one.

Cons – The culture is very backwards, most likely because of the union vs management mindset. It is very resistance to change and mired with a heavy bureaucracy.

There is a saying in company,

There is a right way,
there is a wrong way
and then there is the Coned way.

And good luck trying to change that.

Management lacks soft skills in dealing with union workers. Try taking a few days off for a family medical emergency and you will be stonewalled by supervisors on policy and procedures.

Advice to Senior Management – I don't lay all responsibility at your feet, the union is also to blame not changing with the times. But ask yourself this, if Conedison was in a more competitive market would it be able to survive?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – The benefits are good and the salary is competitive. The work life balance within the company is comparitive to no other company I know of. Managment is very thoruogh in communications and strive to develop your skills allowing you endless opportunities for advanacement if desired. Hard work and dedication are rewarded and the commrodary amongst employees is evident.

Cons – The work can be demanding and there is extreme criticism from media. The public opinion of the company is low but I believe this is based on little knowledge of how the electric utiltiy industry operates. With such a heavy population in the Metro NY area it is difficult an sometimes impossible to distribute the electricity as demanded.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep the communication open and continue to recognize and reward achievements.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Con Edison

Pros – The pay is fair for the industry, but living costs are high in New York. If you like underground electric distribution, there's no where else in the world where you'll learn more. You get to help run the city and it's very satisfying after a hard days work.

Cons – Very structured and bureaucratically run. Sometimes, nepotism is rampant. The time requirments at the job can be very straining on your personal life, if you work in an operations department especially during certain periods of the year.

Advice to Senior Management – Change is good when it comes to modernization and safety. But too much change all at once just turns people away from it in large groups and can be counter productive

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend