Paychex – “A Decent Company That's Gotten A Little Sidetracked”

Pros

The job is highly detail oriented, but they provide you with the tools to do the job. There is a very good training program and the company is very loyal to it's employees. You do get a lot of feedback on your work and as a general rule everyone wants to see you succeed.

Cons

While it seems like there's always an open position, it feels very difficult to move ahead in the company. Promotions are often based on tenure and/or popularity. If there are specific reasons you were passed over they aren't really explained to you. Management in general seems to want to succeed, but they all have very different ideas about how to achieve it. Also, there is a lack of uniformity among the branches. Each is run almost like an individual fiefdom.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to employees and offer promotions and rewards based on performance instead of just tenure, or at the very least make it more obvious that's what you're doing. Try to take more of what works from other branches and incorporate it into all branches. Try to focus more on cross training and specialization. While it's great for everyone to learn about every aspect of the job, it's impossible for one person to be a SME on everything. Specialization allows for highly focused work while cross training can aid in out of the box thinking.