Perceptive Software Reviews in Kansas City, MO Area

Pros

Awesome company culture (e.g. internal and external dodge ball tournament)

Cons

Going through some growing pains

Pros

Positive environment
Place for growth and learning
Competitive pay
Flex scheduling
Better than the many other places I have worked in my life. I don't understand the hate some people who are no longer here show. Just grow up and move on like I have done with prior employers.

Cons

My fat butt can't get up speed on the slide. Seriously I really like it here and haven't found a lot of cons. You are learning their program so your skills don't transfer to other places really well.

Pros

Growing company with lots of opportunities for professional growth.

Cons

Very intense fast paced environment that doesn't always allow for work life balance.

Pros

First, the company has a rare, innovative and flexible time-off policy (no official time tracking). Second, compensation is fair and benefits are excellent. Third, there is the near-guarantee of proper investment and continuing growth (particularly internationally) following the company's acquisition by Lexmark. Fourth, opportunities for learning about the company's particular area of technology (enterprise content management) are abundant.

Cons

The good ideas, determination, and hard work of the company's founders bred a critical mass of success. Success bred rapid growth. Growth bred the typical creeping bureaucracy, with more layers of management, more meetings, less direct involvement between the founders and typical staff members, and less overall agility. The company's acquisition by a larger firm has only accelerated these trends, as distant executives increasingly exert control over aspects of daily life that used to be taken for granted, such as a highly responsive, locally minded employee-tech-support organization that is merging with the mothership and losing the personal touch it once had. Acquisition was not supposed to change the company's laid-back culture or local customs, but there's no doubt it has started to happen and will likely continue. If you are comfortable with a corporate feel and a growing sense of subsidiary-ization, Perceptive can still be a rewarding place to work. But those who recall a more improvisational, startup-oriented environment, heavily laden with the personalities of the founders and the hustle of underdogs, will find much has changed. I suspect it's just a matter of time before those who created this enterprise will move on to other challenges or retire to their well-deserved yachts or second homes.

Advice to Senior Management

To those who started this company, it would be great to see you roll the dice and start a new enterprise after you fulfill your current obligations. You were superb at building something from nothing, and could undoubtedly do it again.

Pros

Events
Free breakfast
Comfortable building
Ok salary
Smarter than average co-workers, though that doesn't apply to managment

Cons

Lack of vision at the mid-management level
Rewarding a 'status quo' mindset
Yes-men environment
Technologically backward in many departments
Good ideas go to management meetings to die
Health insurance co-pays were terrible
The lack of time-tracking really became just an exercise in management awarding time off to their favorites. Beware, that policy can and was used improperly.

Advice to Senior Management

Manage by committee. You'd be better off. Trust the wisdom of the masses. Non-management staff have better ideas than you do. It's clear you're just trying to stay under the radar of top-level management, and your short-sighted, corporate-speak goals show it.

Pros

- Great product that has a promising future.
- Nice building.
- Good benefits, although the 401k plan is lacking.
- Talented employees who are fun to work with.
- Lots of perks (full-sized gym, dodgeball court, massages, exercise classes, free lunches on some days).

Cons

- Salaries are lower compared to similar jobs in the industry, although this is changing somewhat now that Lexmark owns the company.
- No bonuses (in any department in Technical Services)
- Management likes to pick favorites. You will often see employees get rewarded for responding to emails quickly and making unrealistic promises to customers. The ones actually doing the problem solving and legwork don't get noticed as much.
- Poor communication between departments. Nearly everything is mentioned over email or said in meetings. There isn't a good content management system to store internal information and search on it.
- The entire company uses Lotus Notes for e-mail and their calendar, which is slow, buggy, and crashes often. Management has discussed moving to Gmail and Google Calendar, which would be nice.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a decent content management system. If you have a question about an internal process you usually have to search through your e-mail or ask someone else. There is little opportunity to move up in the company, and since there are no bonuses, employees don't have much of an incentive to work harder. Start rewarding employees for being productive.

Pros

- Culture is great, always emphasizing fun
- People are great to work with
- Product is amazing, although a little behind the times in terms of technological advancements and architecture.

Cons

- Management is very political and often times unprofessional
- Career paths are undefined
- Favoritism and nepotism are keys to success.
- Reward not just the managers for company success, but employees as well.

Advice to Senior Management

- Put management through management training
- Reward the employees AND management for company successes not just managers
- Monitor and show disapproval for favoritism and cultural "clicks" when they become unhealthy or harm career progress

Pros

Atmosphere, Culture, Experience, Technology, Youth.

Cons

Pay, Management, Career Growth Opportunities,

Pros

Great product, some very good people and plenty of work to do. Creativity and IQs run very high at PSI.

Cons

If you aren't in the 'favorites' group you are going nowhere. They aren't looking for people who tell them how it really is. They want "yes men". If you are a ladder climbing, backstabbing, finger pointing, guru of nothing but self promotion this is the place for you.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a good, hard look at the quality of people who have walked away in the last two years. They left because they didn't fit the culture of arrogance and hubris. They were people who cared about others and Imagenow. Not everyone lobby's vocally for the promotion; some people actually work for it. Recognize them.

Pros

Other Employees
Relaxed Dress Code
Flexible Work hours
Good Starter job
Good place to learn the software business
Growing company

Cons

Salary are sub par
Benefits are not comparable to other companies of similar size in the area
401K matching is terrible
Lower management lacks experience
lack of career development opportunities
lack of a career path
lack of personal growth opportunities
Management likes to play favorites and outcasts

Advice to Senior Management

Overall the direction the company is heading as a whole looks good, but there are some serious challenges that the company must undertake in order to transform from a small software shop to a mature public organization. Management would be smart to secure the best talent at the company by reviewing salaries and compensation in all positions. There is a risk of high turn over (mass brain drain) with the talent if the local job market improves!