Pros

Company has a great culture. The people there are very respectful, good to work with, and are down to earth. The 1st and 3rd fridays off is good too. The company is also good at providing a lot of technical training both internally and externally. Everyone gets some stock options.

Cons

Middle management in the finance/accounting world seems to be very set in their ways, and resistant to change. It feels like the managers in place would have been great 10-15 years ago, but they haven't kept up to date with new ways of doing things. There seems to be a major bottleneck for promotions, as a lot of the group leads and team leads (middle management) are relatively new (mid 30s), anyone wanting to pass them likely needs to wait in line.

Internal politics also seems to be a big deal, and promotions are not always based on competency. Unless you are directly hired into a role from an external source (and thus paid market rates) base salary may be disappointing. Salary is almost entirely based on years of experience, rather than productivity, output, or quality of work.

Advice to Senior Management

I could see EnCana today being a fantastic place to work if I were 40, had a family, and didn't need to be upwardly mobile in my career. Ultimately though, a company like ECA needs to be more forward looking, and not so complacent.

ECA needs to provide better leadership training for young up-and-comers (there is zero that I have seen - both for myself and anyone else). Encouraging more attrition at the top levels, in order to get fresh ideas, and provide a faster career development path would go a long ways to revitalizing the corporation, and would significantly improve operating performance.