Is CAT digital in Chicago 5 day RTO? Also how is the work culture and work life balance here?
4 replies (most recent on top)
@awd Depends on org and location.
Where I was, leadership was pretty out of control, and a lot of toxic (and even totally inappropriate) behavior was well-tolerated. The compensation was well below market for my particular field, and 24/7 availability was the “baseline expectation” with a lot of people working during their vacations.
If you need a job, take it, but if you’re not a new grad or lifer close to retiring you’ll probably hate it there to at least some degree.
Get ready to spend five days in the office. No exceptions. There’s an entire layer of management monitoring your badge swipes and IP logons.
Apart from RTO & RTO related layoffs, how is the company culture overall? Toxic employees and managers or people who are good mentors?
I’m telling you from inside at digital - do not come over here. The Executive Office is too high on AI right now at all their winter tech conferences to care about doing anything meaningful for employees. It su-ks here right now.
I heard different things from different sources about digital. My guess is that more people in digital got WFH accommodations than other business units, but don’t quote me on that.
Caterpillar was extraordinarily aggressive with RTO enforcement while I was there (I left once I landed a remote job elsewhere). Badge swipes and IP logons were tracked weekly and documented all the way up to the VP level, and several people were put on PIPs. It was also made nearly impossible to get a WFH accommodation. Many people who lived beyond commuting distance from a CAT facility were forced into quitting. An entire team quit en masse over this.
Work-life balance is virtually non-existent. Most managers have completely given up their personal lives in exchange for mediocre pay, and they expect individual contributors to do the same. In addition to hardcore 5-day RTO, you’ll be expected to take meetings and work weekends, off-hours, and during both holidays and vacations. I’m not exaggerating.
My advice: only take the job if you’re desperate and you really need the money.