If you’re an employee from a recent acquisition (e.g. Noble and such) what’s your thoughts on Chevron (culture, leadership, anything). I’d love to know an outside perspective! I’ve been with Chevron most of my career and I really don’t know anything else and with all that’s happening and changing just wondering how other company cultures are and such.
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I came to Chevron by acquisition, and having worked at a number of companies (large, small, private, publicly traded, not-for-profit) I can honestly say Chevron is a mess in every way. Broken processes, ill-conceived initiatives, poor leadership at every level, restrictive hierarchy, a narrow definition of innovation that dooms us to more of the same in an era when that is just not going to work, a lot talent going to waste, and a soul-ki-ling culture of learned helplessness and complacency. Chevron is the most chaotic and least self-aware company I’ve ever worked for, and they seem proud of it.
NBL here. 1) a ridiculous amount of labor goes to chevron processes to no where. People act as though these are tablets next to the 10 commandments. Yet most are so broken, we have phantom process to actually do the things the process think it’s does. 2) a culture of no bad news going upward. Example: i suspect most execs think Agile works. So, we just keep jazz handsing useless processes. 3) upward career trajectory is unbelievably limited. I cannot fathom a structure more inhibiting. 4) experience and expertise are not valued, period. The notion you can swap roles every 24-36 months is insane. Loads of studies show it’s at least a year before someone is productive in a role, and by then most folks are shopping for the next one. It also makes a staff that’s an inch deep and a mile wide.
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My my,someone's nerve or perhaps guilt got pricked. Let me guess, a supervisor with a full calendar of meetings but no actual work. You know you should go in terms of profitability but the feed bag is just too good to hang up so you get upset when you realise people see through the top heavy value ki-ling org structures? Don't worry, not like higher management are looking.
Wow. just wow. you guys come to the layoffs boards and write blogs. get a life
It’s interesting reading the comments, because things got way worse with regards over staffing, thiefdoms and competency of management when the Unocal maffia arrived.
Lack of accountability and responsibility, every decision has to be made by committee, coming to Chevron was stepping back 10 years in my career.
Over staffed! If dancing with the stars was produced by the ABU they would have marching bands rather than couples. All those 3 to 5 people teams with at least 1 supervisor. I wouldn't be surprised if Chevron managers have people fill their cars with petrol and another to tie their shoes.
@nrq+1uXGcvPQ - and we’re not even it’s the lightbulb that is the problem.
I came from Unocal. I fully agree with the poster that expressed the sentiments about over staffing, slow management decisions, personnel movements and process before progress. I was also frustrated with the PDC decisions to put hipot candidates into safety sensitive positions. These candidates could manage operations during normal operations but had no clue in how to deal with a “bad day” when assets and personnel were at risk.
I made the decision to retire as I could not support the company’s decisions to place unqualified diversity and gender employees into senior positions within the SBU unit where I worked.
Financially the transition to Chevron provided myself and my family with significantly more financial rewards than my prior employer.
Many of my long time Chevron peers and friends used to tell me that u have a sh’!t bucket and a money bucket. If the money bucket exceeds what u need to require then retire. If the sh’!t bucket overflows for yourself then it is time to retire or leave.
As much as I loathed the ineffecincies of Chevron I always tried to simplify the processes and BS for the teams that I worked with. We made some great decisions despite th BS.
We have some great people who want to be successful and i am a strong believer that it is incumbent upon our middle management and senior management to drive changes upwardly and downwardly within the organizations to make our company more effecient, a more enjoyable place to work and a more profitable corporation. The bottom line is decision making needs to be driven down into the organization ( from an operations perspective) to drive
With respect to jumping ships one needs to be careful. In my time chevrons total compensation was superior to offers that I received from other companies. Also I was offered a job from Noble. They could not come close to the total comp that Chevron was paying….. wouldn’t that be great to leave only to be swallowed up again by Chevron??
The bottom line is for everyone to evaluate their money bucket and their sh’!t buckets.
If the Sh’!t bucket is overflowing then it is probably time to pursue other opportunities
If it is not overflowing then perhaps be a bit patient given the state of the economy.
As we all know the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence
Everyone needs to make the best decisions for themselves and their families based upon their own personal situation. Don’t jump ship on impulse
Two previous comments speak volumes. Overstuffed? Absolutely. Chevron managers need a large coterie of cowards who privately don't believe the BS but will publicly agree with anything to get promoted and or retained. Secondly for someone to admit they've never worked anywhere else and opine chevron is simply the best suggests chevron management. The systems are awful and processes out of date. Conditions of service are very good though.
I came with the Texaco acquisition. Hated it at first, now I'm glad it was Chevron that acquired us. Here I am 25 years later. Take that for whatever it's worth.
I’ve been around long enough and I’m old enough to not get involved in the cooler talk, but walking around the towers, and hearing things about ENGINE and looming organization changes, this seems more ominous than past ROMs. I’m not old enough to retire but at the age where age discrimination will probably be a problem if I’m laid off. I have kids that are in HS and then college, I guess I’ll need to start preparing my resume and just see where interviews lead, I can’t afford to be out of a job.
Obviously, I hope I get to stay, but from the meetings I’ve attended and few things I’ve heard, it seems I’m the kind of guy they’d offload. Anyway, I’m not going to bash Chevron, it’s been the only company I’ve known and it’s been amazing place to work all these years, just simply the best.
I wish us all the best in what’s coming and hopefully it’s being blown out of proportion.
As someone who spent time in two other companies I see four things that hurt Chevron the most.
One, my BU is overstaffed. It take five people to sc--w in a lightbulb and because of this work structure we spend a lot of time waiting on others. One person to buy the lightbulb, one to bring the ladder, one to take off the light bulb, one to place the light bulb, and one to dispose of the broken light bulb.
Two, the PDC process and people changing roles every two to three years is bonkers. There always seems like someone comes in and has to be trained to do the work, like getting the right light bulb or having to learn where the ladder is placed. And those that get the hang of things are then on their way out to another role.
Three, there is a lot of process just to do something. We have to set up a plan to change the light bulb. Then present it to managers like four times to make sure they agree. Only after recycling the same presentation over and over do they agree that we can change the light bulb. But only one... if we need to change another we will have to present everything to managers again and recycle the same presentations but now make sure we specify that this is a different light bulb we are changing.
And four, management takes forever to make a decision. We just need to change a light bulb... not wait on whether a small light bulb is in the budget for this year or if this is the right light bulb. Then spend another month just making the approval.