I haven't been here very long. In general, I have no major complaints. I always wanted to work at Ford and that was my dream job. But, meetings... I really have nothing against meetings that are constructive, but there are the least of these. It's mostly just meetings after which I feel completely exhausted. Has such a large number of meetings, most of which are completely unnecessary, always been part of Ford's corporate culture?
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Management has to justify their existence somehow. What better way to say they actually do something than a meeting. Meetings to plan meetings are always fun. Right?
@OP count your blessings that we are WFH and you can just have the meetings as background noise.
Here is the typical day in the life while in the office
7-8 mandatory morning meeting - report on what occurred since last meeting, everyone showed up because if you didn’t someone would blame you for problems, and of course donuts and coffee were served
8-9 mandatory section meeting to review problems at the section - LL5
10-11 mandatory group meeting to review problems at the group level - LL6
11-1 lunch, drinks, play cards at the bar with the team
1-3 free time for work / sleep / socializing
3- end of work day celebration at the bar
All the meetings were really about socializing and shifting blame. The same problems chewed on for years, a newbie only made the mistake of fixing the root cause of a problem once as instead of being thanked they were crucified as it made everyone else look bad.
I agree there are too many meetings and a waste of time. However, you cannot appear to be “drained.” You need to tell everyone that you are “energized” and ready to work now that you have clear direction. Lol.
We don't have a 'too many meetings' problem, we have a deficit when it comes to asynchronous collaboration. We either don't have the tools to do this or the knowledge to use the tools we don't have.
Too many Ford meetings are social events where the minutes are kept and the hours are lost.
1vxh,
Trouble is the meetings are disorganized.
Like many other companies, they have excessive amounts of meetings because their so dis-organized.
Yes, meetings are a big part of the culture. They take up a lot of time away from getting your job done, an 8 hour day turns into a 10 hour day. Ford doesn't understand how much time is wasted and how much stuff just doesn't get done... Like quality issues.
If you're just starting your career, I would suggest working at a supplier, your work will be more action / hands on orientated. At the OEMs the work is more about program management, and thus more meetings. One advantage at Ford, is at least the meetings have hard stop, so if someone doesn't want to stop talking, they can keep talking - everyone will just hang up. There is one in every meeting.
LOL.