“Great Place to Work” is more a recruitment strategy than a reflection of the company’s culture.
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Free lunch (even we know there’s no such thing as “free lunch”).
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Toxic leadership.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
A shift in Kia Europe’s leadership approach is urgently needed.
For Kia to truly embody the values it promotes, it must move beyond mere words and begin aligning its daily practices with its stated principles.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Kia Europe’s culture is dominated by fear, control and distrust, leading management to adopt a defensive or aggressive posture whenever employees raise concerns or ask questions.
The company motto, “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions,” is often used to shut down open communication, discouraging team members from speaking up unless they have an immediate solution.
This fear-based approach backfires growth, limits innovation, and keeps employees from addressing genuine challenges that need collaborative solutions.
Kommunikation
Kia Europe’s approach to communication reflects its broader culture of blame and mistrust.
Managers often discuss colleagues disrespectfully in open spaces. This lack of professionalism discourages open communication.
Public reprimands are common, and new employees are often introduced to this environment with minimal onboarding or training.
The command-and-control management styles creates an environment of fear and high stress, making it difficult to communicate issues effectively.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
While team members are generally friendly, management’s authoritarian style creates a stressful, hostile atmosphere.
Collaboration takes a back seat to a hyper-competitive environment.
Although management believes this drives performance, it only fosters unrealistic achievement standards, causing friction and undermining teamwork.
Work-Life-Balance
Work-life balance is nearly non-existent at Kia Europe.
Staff frequently put in overtime due to chronic understaffing and unreasonable workloads, and employees are often unable to compensate for this extra time.
Many in management work 10 to 12 hours a day, struggling to manage their overwhelming workload, which has led some to burnout.
This culture of constant overwork creates a sense of urgency that leaves employees spending long hours at their desks, often unable to take regular breaks.
It is common to see employees running to and from the restroom, trying to keep up with their tasks, and even being required to log time spent having a coffee unless it’s directly work-related.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Interactions with my manager were the least favorable part of my experience.
My manager routinely exhibits toxic behaviors, including gaslighting, gossiping, sarcasm, passive aggression, and constant criticism, aimed at keeping employees under strict control.
Interns and junior employees are often on the receiving end of humiliating treatment, frequently breaking down in tears, eroding their self-confidence and affecting their career aspirations.
In general, management’s focus on minor issues often leads to relentless micromanagement, while important, high-level objectives are ignored.
Employees are expected to operate with zero error tolerance, and any perceived “failure” is met with passive-aggressive comments and sarcastic remarks.
Constructive guidance is rare; instead, employees face criticism without any direction on how to improve. This feedback often feels designed to undermine rather than help, leaving employees in a state of perpetual self-doubt.
It is particularly concerning that new hires are subjected to this treatment from the start, with almost no onboarding support.
Interessante Aufgaben
Employees are often assigned unfamiliar tasks with tight deadlines and little to no instructions.
This pressure to perform without any support makes for an unsustainable workload.
This paired with poor project planning and constant “firefighting” keep employees under time pressure, adding to an already tense atmosphere.
Tasks are often outdated and inefficient, with many assignments easily automatable.
However, a lack of digital literacy in management means that inefficient, repetitive tasks continue to take up time.
Employees regularly spend excessive hours refining PowerPoint slides and updating old Excel files, tasks that add little value but remain a staple of the company’s operations.
Gleichberechtigung
Kia Europe often promotes the diversity of nationalities among its employees, but it lacks genuine initiatives to foster equity or to close the gender gap.
Women hold very few leadership positions, and those who do often mimic the attitudes of their male counterparts to fit in.
This leaves younger women without positive female role models, diminishing their confidence in their own potential and discouraging them from aspiring to higher positions.
Kia Europe’s superficial diversity efforts do little to inspire women or foster an inclusive culture.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
The leadership structure is dominated by older executives who tend to favor traditional, command-and-control management styles.
This creates a work culture that is more about compliance than collaboration, fostering an environment of fear and toxicity.
This homogeneity in leadership limits the company’s adaptability and innovation, as well as the perspectives available to younger employees.
Arbeitsbedingungen
The physical work environment and resources provided are insufficient, with outdated technology and limited meeting spaces.
Employees frequently have to work around these limitations, adding to the stress and frustration of the job.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
At Kia Europe, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives remain largely on the sidelines, with minimal commitment to integrating these values into daily practices.
Despite the company’s claims to uphold modern, responsible business standards, there is little evidence to suggest that these initiatives hold any real weight in decision-making or management priorities.
Topics such as gender parity and age diversity are brushed aside, receiving little attention until external audits or compliance checks demand action.
Gender balance and equal representation, for instance, remain more of a checklist item than a core objective.
Although Kia Europe occasionally touts the importance of a diverse and inclusive workforce, in practice, no tangible steps are taken to close gender gaps, nor is there a genuine effort to create a balanced age distribution within teams.
Instead of proactively building a culture that champions diversity, equity, and inclusion, Kia Europe’s approach is reactionary, taking minimal action only when forced by external scrutiny.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
Despite Kia Europe’s ambition to be an “employer of choice,” its salary offerings do not reflect the intensity of workloads or the high demands placed on employees, which often far exceed the traditional requirements of similar roles.
Teams are regularly expected to work overtime to compensate for understaffing, often without appropriate financial recognition or the ability to recuperate this time.
For many employees, the additional hours and stress are not matched by fair compensation, leaving them to feel that their efforts and sacrifices are overlooked.
Image
Kia Europe’s workplace culture does not align with its public image as a “Great Place to Work.”
The actual environment is characterized by a fear-based approach to control, a lack of accountability, constant negative feedback without support, high workloads, and an absence of meaningful diversity initiatives.
Without a significant cultural shift toward a genuinely supportive and empowering workplace, Kia will struggle to achieve its aspiration of becoming an “Employer of Choice.”
Karriere/Weiterbildung
Unlike many dynamic organizations, Kia has limited plans for expansion, which restricts the availability of new roles and career advancement opportunities within the company.
This lack of growth at the organizational level means that employees hoping to climb the corporate ladder often find themselves facing a stagnated career path, with few openings for promotion.
Further compounding this issue, Kia’s management approach includes a structured guideline for evaluating employee performance, which mandates that a certain minimum percentage of employees receive the lowest performance ratings.
This approach keeps overall expectations on career growth low and adds a layer of discouragement for employees who might otherwise aspire to progress within the company.
Even high-performing employees may receive limited recognition or lower ratings simply to fulfill these internal quotas, regardless of their actual contributions or potential.