HARMAN International Reviews

Current Employee – been working at HARMAN International

Pros – good to work with company, good work, latest technologies.

Cons – Lower management is not that good, they thinks they only know things and other co-workers or colleagues are useless, in fact it's a misunderstanding or theirs which may hurt Harman International India. Not were open cultural.

Advice to Senior Management – Just have manager instead of TLs. They should involve everybody instead of relying on some people from the team.

Current Employee – been working at HARMAN International

Pros – - Sometimes interesting projects
- being in Southern California obviously has its perks
- working with talented people in the audio industry

Cons – - Incredibly low employee moral
- Low pay compared to other companies
- hideously drab and uninspiring office building
- lack of management competence
- zero room for growth
- overall sense of worthlessness instilled in employees from management

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your employees; tame down the cost cutting measures; understand what our core competencies are and leverage them; decorate the office a little bit

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HARMAN International

Pros – Still has some of the best engineers in the world of audio at the helm and when given the opportunity can deliver stunning expereinces in the home, car, and portable audio marketplace. A company that was driven by a passion for music and the emotional impact that it has on life, was able to overcome many of the roadblocks and deliver for the consumer.

Cons – The was a time where this company was looked upon as the leader in the space. Today that has become more of a talking point than a reality as it continues to stuggle to deliver cutting edge consumer products, enter into ultra low cost commercial products, and finding ways to capitalize on auto companies outside of the normal big players. Many of those that built this company are now gone and leadership is focused on markets other than the US. At a time when they could become a top tier supplier at home and regain the respect of consumer and clients, they have ignored the opportunity in the US. With a CEO that ranks as some of the highest paid (a complete 180 from the past) he has failed to leverage stock price back to solid levels, continues to play the role of rockstar CEO while misleading the media sloth, and continues to slash costs leaving departments so thin that the errors of their efforts become magnified in light of what was once a great company.

Advice to Senior Management – Get it right, stop with the marketing BS and look at the image you are delivering to the marketplace. Reduce the number of errors, defective products, and improve speed to market without the need for software updates, reworks, or delay. Connect the dots and finally deliver solutions that wow the consumer and combine audio, communication, and real innovation. wake up form the dream state you are in, align products with real use cases, real consumer systems, and get back to your roots.

Former Employee – worked at HARMAN International

Pros – The company offers good hourly wages; good benefits package; and a clean work environment. The site has a decent cafeteria.

Cons – Unfortunately they believe in ten hours a day and seven days a week. I lasted almost six months and then realized I wanted to be a person not just a worker.

Advice to Senior Management – A products quality will always go down when the people working are not given sufficient time off. Less mandatory overtime!

Current Employee – been working at HARMAN International

Pros – Harman has a wonderful history, some great brands, and has developed some great audio products in the past. The opportunity to produce great sounding audio products that people hear everywhere in the world is unmatched by working any other audio company in the world.

Cons – In recent years, corporate management in Stanford has become large and bloated, made up of mostly people from outside the audio industry who understand little about audio technology and the audio business. To make the non-corporate underlings more accountable they've put into place hierarchical layers of bureaucracy in all processes. As a result, decisions take forever to be made, often without valuable input from the people who know best. The slow decision process and compensation scheme means product managers are often unwilling to take risk: not exactly an environment to nurture innovation and new technology. Compensation is based on meeting unflexible targets set 1 year in advance (not long-term goals), so managers make decisions to maximize their bonuses, not always what's best for the medium-long-term health of the company and the consumer. A good example is arbitrarily moving factories/engineering to Mexico/China without adequate preparation. In the short-term, it saves money on paper, but at what cost? Time will tell whether the leaders realize what Harman's core competency is (good sounding products) and get behind it, before they destroy it.

Advice to Senior Management – Develop a medium-long term strategy around Harman's core competency (best-in-class audio and acoustics) and put into place processes, infrastructure and talented people who ensure that Harman continues to make best-in-class products.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at HARMAN International

Pros – Ability to focus on priorities you set for yourself. High salary.

Cons – Difficult to understand how roles and priorities align to business goals. Lack of forward looking goals, roles, and efforts. Resource management engages in reaction to missed deliverables, or key departures, not proactively. HR treats employees as pests to be managed.

Advice to Senior Management – Invest in developing and challenging people, if you want a profitable future. Don't treat your racehorses as pack animals.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at HARMAN International

Pros – [automotive division only] Co-workers are friendly and hard working. Patent awards (cash) and the ever-rare spot award (called lightning bolts) that can give out as much as $1,000. Pop is 25 cents for 20oz and you can wear jeans to work 5 days a week.

Cons – [automotive division only] Lots. The company is building up it's outsourcing at a break-neck pace. Chine and India are quickly becoming the place to develop products. In addition, the north america automotive division is crammed into several small office buildings around the Farmington Hills area in Michigan. But for many different reasons, Harman is not willing to invest in this site. So parking is an absolute nightmare as more people work in the building than it was supposed to handle.

Also, the senior people who are the most creative and talented have been leaving in a short-period of time( 6 months). In that span of time, very few people have been hired to back-fill the positions. However, the caliber of the people that left was very high. Filling these positions will be difficult if not impossible. Benefits are horrible and you can be expected to pay about 25% more for your medical benefits and it is one of the cheapest plans out there. Having a baby? Expect to pay about $1000 for your out-of-pocket expense! Not the usual $50 - $100 that most other company plans would cover.

Bottom line, this company is on the decline. They are moving there development to low-cost countries as is evident in how little they spend for north american employees. That is why, I believe, all the smart intelligent people are leaving this company to look for a more stable organization. I do not recommend working for this company.

Advice to Senior Management – Advice for automotive division: Stop worrying about operating costs and combine all employees into one building. It is a major issue to have the workers so fragmented (4 offices in Michigan, 1 in Indiana, 1 in Kentucky, 2 in Germany). There really should be one site in Germany and one site in Michigan. We could actually share knowledge and be much more efficient at delivering products. Buy out the existing leases and invest in one site that would allow future growth for the company.

Advise for entire company... stop focusing on the short-term and look at long-term goals. Ever project I have ever worked on has focused on current model year and nothing else. Then when the program is done, it's on to the next one. Also, individual teams should hand out rewards (and especially say the words: "Thank You") when team members go above and beyond the call of duty. There are no incentives for working here besides getting your bi-weekly paycheck. Although I will say that some team do reward their teams with free lunches, parties, and small gifts ($20 guft cards). I applaud those teams, however it makes the sting of resentment hurt even worse when other teams are all work. Equality is needed.

This place used to be a fun place to work. Now it is just a place to work.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HARMAN International

Pros – Brands, Products history, Compensation and benefits

Cons – Dictatorial work culture with management having a factory culture mindset. Respect for the employees is absolutely lacking and people are in for a shock when you join for the Brand name but find high misuse of power in the top management with sycophancy and crude treatment of employees. Negative bureaucracy. Technology awareness is bleak at the top and so is the ability to do business in the market. Innovation is impossible at this center.

Advice to Senior Management – Value employees. Empowerment in the centers can be misused to the core. Though a big global org, it is a small start up in the country. Management arrogance will lose the talent necessary for a budding center. Technology team is certainly questionable for not having technical depth.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at HARMAN International

Pros – Cool company if they stuck to what they know.
Great sounding products, amps, speakers and car audio.
Could retake their proper place as best in class, if...

Cons – Constant change of management after the Harman family was removed.
A puppy attention span
Work hard, do job well, and don't rock the boat

Advice to Senior Management – This company still makes some of the best sounding products in the world, but too bad it can not get out of its own way. You forgot what made the company great, its people. It's people made the technology, it's people had the passion, it's people made the company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at HARMAN International

Pros – There are lots of opportunities for the right talents and right organizational cultural fit. Learning potential in various areas if also great. Famous products and brands.

Cons – Very fast-paced and dynamic environment. Not for the faint-hearted or the laid back. Risk-taking not yet a welcome practice. Innovation could be improved.

Advice to Senior Management – Foster greater product and process innovation. Let people fail some times if they're trying hard and going in the right direction, and if they have the right skills.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend