Pacific Gas and Electric Reviews

I have been working at Pacific Gas and Electric full-time

Pros – Lots of employees are willing to stop and help you; large company environment that is hiring a lot; new leaders in company (CEO) are taking the company in the right direction

Cons – many middle management are very territorial and can be short sighted with their own organization's personal gains, which hinders overall company benefit and improvement; slow to change and lots of very tenured employees resist change

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Pacific Gas and Electric full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Decent pay.
Flexible work schedule.
Um ...

Cons – Do your job too well and you'll get voted off the island. Top heavy organization with entrenched culture of nepotism, favoritism, and mediocrity. Back door politics determine longevity and advancement potential.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Pacific Gas and Electric full-time for more than a year

Pros – Worked at PG&E during the Smart Meter, San Bruno, and Prop 46 debacles. Encountered a corporation that was hamstrung at the headquarters, but the employees in the field are some of the best and hardest working people I've ever worked with.

Cons – Management restructures constantly. Company issues talking points then revises them weeks or months later, making representatives lose credibility. Pay and bonus structure is not that great, they only give substantial increases if you're about to leave.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop restructuring. Improve pay for frontline representatives. Argue against policies in Sacramento and San Francisco that hurt consumers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Pacific Gas and Electric as a contractor for more than 3 years

Pros – Great benefits, decent pay, location of office was great and growth for learning opportunities were available.

Cons – Nepotism continues to quiet evident on who gets hired and what pay rate. You may get hired but ability to move up clearly depends on who you know rather than what you know.

Advice to Senior Management – Base more job advancement of job qualifications, outside HR department and better management oversight.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Pacific Gas and Electric as a contractor for more than 3 years

Pros – Lots of opportunity to advance within a large company environment.

Cons – Lots of reorganization, which can be a good thing for some positions. For others, it could mean transition out of the company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Pacific Gas and Electric as an intern

Pros – This pertains to the Regulatory Relations department specifically:
-People who work here are very intelligent and take their work seriously
-Good exposure to utility business
-Once you're in, easy to stay in, firm supports internal referral
-Good pay

Cons – -Aging workforce means most people at the firm are 40+ years old
-Little onboarding or training for new hires
-Little exposure to other roles or departments unless you change roles (for younger employees could be after 1-2 years)

Advice to Senior Management – Start thinking about transitioning the company to attracting younger crowd. Current workforce will retire soon and the current HR/onboarding model is not attractive to recent grads looking for accelerated career growth

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Pacific Gas and Electric full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good pay, cannot complain about the wages as it was a comfortable living as long as you are not in a peon job.

Cons – Beware of certain bosses, they talk about you to your co-workers behind your back then give you a lousy review as if you did something wrong!

Advice to Senior Management – Don't buddy up with the co-workers and discriminate against certain people for being white. You are setting yourself up for a lawsuit.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Pacific Gas and Electric full-time for more than a year

Pros – - Decent pay, benefits.
- Lots of churn, sometimes creates opportunities
- Seems pretty fair in terms of HR practices, focus on diversity, ergonomics, safety.

Cons – - Feels bureacratic
- Incompetence isn't punished
- Lots of hierarchy, upper mgmt doesn't feel accessible
- Lots of churn, can create continuity issues
- Slow moving.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't exactly love the place but don't hate my life either. I think one of the few things that keeps people around is the decent benefits. Beyond that, I haven't met too many people who love their job. It's about 1/10 who seem content. Same advice for any big org. Cut the fat, push out weak managers and employees. Drive to root cause of issues, stop trying to get blanket policies to solve problems, only seems to paper over the problems. Etc etc. This is more of caution to prospective employees. It's stable. You probably won't find it very exciting, unless you're in a group that constantly reorgs and its probably the wrong kind of excitement but it pays the bills and seems like more than half of the people are planning on ending their career here for the pension so don't expect anyone to rock the boat in an innovative or exciting way. Can't blame em, its just human interest and the company is structured to be a very middle of the road comfortable way to retire. If you want to get rich, come back as a contractor.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Pacific Gas and Electric full-time for less than a year

Pros – Telecommuting; salaries are good for starers or those without a degree - not so good if you are already high in the pay scale and coming in; benefits are better than some private sector, pension plan. If you are focused - good work/life balance.

Cons – Managers and up are jumping around with demands out of fear - not a good mid-management set up. The demands shift all over the place and take up too much of the day. Generally weak middle management. Low-balling the salaries for new hires and managers. Hard to hear you came in at top step when you didn't. Work is too focused on meeting odd measures of productivity - all for the bonus.

Advice to Senior Management – Change the metrics of bonus measurements - ie: injury reporting and numeric scales that only measure a small aspect of work that employees really have no control over. The daily work gets driven by these poor scales. Pay well from the start. Too insular and averse to new ideas.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Pacific Gas and Electric as an intern for less than a year

Pros – If you like working at slow and safe pace, where changes generally go at a turtle's pace then this is the place you want to work at. Pay is good, benefits are good, and the people that work here are good.

Cons – The pace is too slow caused mostly by communication issues. The company is very top heavy, those at the bottom will generally be pushed aside by management in critical projects. A utility company should and needs to listen to the folks on the ground. There is a general lack of standardization and sharing of information which ultimately are communcation issues that can really slow a company down during important changes caused by government regulations or natural disasters.

Advice to Senior Management – A system of standization is needed. There is also a need to greatly emphasize the sharing of information between employees and employment. Every project should only have people that are 100% committed to the project, this speeds up the project by providing better organization and ensuring that resources are appropriately allocated towards the completion of the project. In other words, get the project done on time, on budget, and with no BS or extra sugar.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend