Was the best under Sidney Harman, new management team destroyed a great place to work.
Pros
Its a well known company in the audio industry and the brand recognition was a proud part of working for Harman. My children and I would look for JBL logos in all the public places and point them out. I was there many years and it was a family friendly company that really cared about its employees at one time. The benefits were good and the atmosphere in the company was very supportive among all the co-workers. Management was encouraged and expected to treat employees with respect. If you could do a job outside of your normal duties or had an good idea, most likely it would get implimented. Many people had worked there for upwards of 45 years and had great knowledge which was passed down thru to the customers and other employees.
Cons
Once Sidney Harman left along with his daughter Gina who was the President of the Consumer Group it went all downhill fast. Unfortunately this was brought on by deal that went sour with KKR and Goldman-Sachs which resulted in a huge devaluation of Harman stock. Dinesh Paliwal closed the NY office in June 2009 and many of Harman's most talented people were let go. The entire award-winning Design and Production dept was let go. And the worst of it all was the Customer Service, Technical Support, Parts and all the Financial Services were outsourced to India with Wipro Industries as a vendor. There were a few people kept on just for "escalation" in the US. The atmosphere is now tense and remaining people are afraid to speak freely for fear of their jobs. Managers are under intense pressure to deliver which results in poor employee relations. The service to the customers is just terrible due to the fact that the Wipro outsource has high turnover and the agents there just don't know the products. I would not recommend Harman International as a career path any longer.
