Caterpillar reviews

Workload is not distributed equally across groups. Some have multiple projects and NPI going at once while others sit with one project per year. For a company who supposedly champions work-life balance, the amount of micromanagement and expectations to be available after hours does not reflect that. The "Executive Office" (whatever that means) has made a unilateral edict to return to the office full time with no exceptions. Citing "collaboration" and "we are always better together" even though most of us don't work with groups in our office locations and have to have virtual meetings most of the time. Management refuses to acknowledge that productivity and morale was improved when there was a work from home and hybrid work model, in some cases almost a 50% productivity improvement. Who you know seems to be more important than your skills and experience when selecting candidates for positions. Seems that if you haven't played the office politics game you have no ability to move up in the company. Global service specifically has made the decision that they will not be doing any more promotions in place. Management has decided that rather than encouraging workers to improve in their current positions and grow in their abilities, they want us to move on to different positions across different areas of the company. This decision seems to be short sighted and has already resulted in lose of good competent workers with no backfill, causing higher stress and workload on those who haven't left yet.

Our recently departed CEO strategically enacted a 5-day in-office work policy a week or so before departure in the hopes of ameliorating a broad-based backlash against the new CEO. While I'm not familiar with anyone casting blame on the new CEO, the 5-day in-office standard is regressive, unnecessary, inefficient, has broad disapproval and is a poorly veiled effort to reduce headcount in general in an already somewhat disgruntled team ahead of what many perceive as an inevitable "streamlining" of personnel with the advent of AI. This new 5-day in-office policy is being used broadly by lower-level management as ammunition to deny promotions, limit career growth opportunities and increase control over individual contributors in general at a time when record year on record year should be reflected in the prosperity of everyone at this company when it simply has not. The last several years of investment in stock buybacks and dividend increases during record years at the expense of headcount and individual contributor compensation has resulted in reduced morale across various groups within CAT as a parent company. It's pretty clear to those in the know that this has shifted the compensation significantly in favor of senior and executive leaders at the expense of front-line employees at a time when execution is seeing plummeting feedback from customers and dealers.