Philips reviews

Unfortunately Philips makes oodles of promises and institutes programs and processes without a lot of follow-up, or the wrong kinds of follow-up. For the most part this has been recognized by management in the last 18 months (2011-2012) and they are working on it. Unfortunately many of these efforts are more of the same kinds of programs and trying to make things into something that can be checked off a list, measured in a KPI, or captured in the employee engagement survey. The communication and PR people are very focused on presenting a clean and perfect image to the world, this is inline with the Philips Design Language--clean, simple, white. Unfortunately this is not what is actually happening internally and even in our financial results. The internal communications network is relentlessly positive and "rah rah" and presents a shiny perfect picture, but because this doesn't square with people's experience it creates... I guess cognitive dissonance is the best word I can think of here. So often we're trying to push sense and simplicity to the outside world, but we're unwilling to make things inside the company sensible and simple. Internal systems are a mess for the most part and difficult to use (not to mention ugly and slow). Getting things done requires crazy amounts of approvals from all levels. For example as a cost cutting measure we have to get all intercontinental travel approved by the head of Philips Research. That's right, my manager's manager's manager has to approve travel outside of Europe! What in the world can he possibly know about the needs related to my travel request? In Philips Research in particular something like 95% of all management have been in Philips their entire career (20+ years). This is starting to change with some recent hires of department heads from outside Research (but internal Philips) and even some external people. This is encouraging, but because we're so internally focused and wrapped up in our own history and traditions we're not making very much progress. Following up on the thread of needing more new products and services, it's quite difficult because of the way we're structured, to really get new things to land inside of the business units. Very often they are only marginally interested in the things we're doing and of course many researcher are more interested in the challenge and scientific curiosity of things than really bringing things to market. Of course there are many who are, but even when there is a strong will it's very difficult. Quite often we as R&D are seen as a vendor to the business units not truly a partner or co-creator of solutions. We are often asked to work with the development people inside of the business, but it's clear that some of them would rather that the budget allocated to us be given to them. We also work with the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) Office and it's clear that they understand what R&D is all about, but they are also often isolated from what is happening day-to-day in the business units themselves. We're wrapped up in old school and old guard mentalities centered around command and control with processes. Many people after being programmed that this is the way things work will simply do the process in order to get it checked off and CYA. We're process not results driven. Again I see this as starting to change, but we don't have enough fresh blood in leadership to make this happen well. We're unwilling to make things uncomfortable for those that don't wish to come along in the transformation of the company to something that is really great. Because almost all the decision makers are Dutch, they are wrapped up in the idea of permanent contracts, which also often means lifetime employment. We rarely fire people. I can see how this is important in many ways, but we have to be willing to let people go who don't perform, and that means that we have to actually have hard discussions about what the company needs in terms of individual performance and attitudes. We need more outside people on the highest levels of the company and the different parts of the company. We've seen that with Jim Andrews being hired lately and Frans van Houten has at least some experience outside Philips. This is not to say that hiring internally is bad, I've seen and heard of companies where this really works well, but I think that those organizations also had a strong and clear internal culture that really worked in many ways. I also don't think this is really about most of the managers being Dutch as it is that they are all internal, but I think that could play a part in the internal stagnancy. When I talk to people who work in our "external labs" (see how we talk about that?) they always say that anything really important gets taken over by Eindhoven (the HQ for Research).

Don't expect to make any difference there, even less so than in your typical blue chip company. If you enjoy what you do and like to see an impact of your work, you will be greatly disappointed. Company stays in business by milking its current product lines with a tweak here and there and buying and integrating third party solutions to stay competitive. Mainstream medical device market moves very slowly so this strategy works to a point. They've had their share of layoffs back in 2008 and again last year, and with the new Philips CEO on board and Accelerate! program more are probably coming. They don't really appreciate your effort unless you put all of it into maintaining status quo and brown nosing your manager and everyone else who you think may be useful to you. People have nice manners on the surface and they are helpful to an extent that requires little or no effort on their part but when rubber hits the road all they really want is to point finger at someone else and make it their problem. Everyone is scared as hell to take on any responsibility outside of their immediate area. The original HP engineering culture that started Silicon Valley has long evaporated post acquisition and was replaced with a new way of thinking of engineers as commodity "resource". I guess this can work for awhile if you are in maintenance mode and all you want is to protect and keep milking your established niche. But this can not be viable long term strategy and I think the new top management realizes it (but if you are close to retirement, why would you care ?). The company pays OK salaries, but what they fail to understand is that good people are not motivated by money alone. In the end of the day you feel squeezed like a lemon by an endless series of pointless meetings and senseless requests having accomplished absolutely nothing to advance your personal knowledge or your career. Over time and this environment becomes damaging to your sanity and professional development.