Pros

decent benefits, started doing a better job training employees, casual dress

Cons

Everything that used to be good to work at SPSS is gone like flexibility to work from home, incentive trips and company activities.

Advice to Senior Management

Utilize some of of the talent there that remains untapped and provide opportunities for advancement

Pros

It's a solidly professional place. The engineers are competent, experienced veterans. As with any place, certain teams are clearly dysfunctional. However, most teams are exceedingly well run, especially compared to the average software house. These guys have seen it all, and have ALOT of perspective, experience, and knowledge to transfer to younger hires.

The Sears Tower location is ideal for both city and suburb residents. Union station is just a few blocks away, and it's centrally located for commutes from the north, south, or west sides.

Cons

As software companies go, SPSS has been around forever. The downside is it's often difficult to push innovative approaches through.

Advice to Senior Management

Fix HR. Weakest part of the company, by far.

Pros

Great Work life balance, supportive management, good place to work for working moms.

Great Flexibility to work from home

Cons

Lack of career opportunities, most people have been working for lot of years so, promotions are very slow. Does not seem like a company to work for if you need fast career progress

Benefits are average, nothing to write home about.
Directions are not set clearly and there is significant randomization. Communication channels and responsibilities are also not well defined across the company.
Internal systems and processes are implemented without regard to the impact across the organization and impedes individual performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on business and retaining talent

Pros

Industry leader, well defined roles and expectations, good benefits, professional environment.

Cons

Internal systems and processes are implemented without regard to the impact across the organization and impedes individual performance.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more careful about the type of executive level people you bring on. A few hired 4 years ago were in over their heads and were only concerned with presenting a glorified view of the organization to Jack and the board. Hopefully that has changed with recent hires after I left.

Pros

Decent pay, good technology and great (for the most part) co-workers. Everyone I work with tries incredibly hard to hit the objectives expected of them. Office in the Sears Tower is central location and easy to get to.

Cons

Red tape for even the smallest request. Old, outdated equipment that even when broken can take weeks to replace due to the multiple levels of approval needed. Lots of people throughout the company who are afraid of change and make it hard to work with. Communication from management sorely lacking, except for a couple of times a year. Key leadership positions are either unfilled or filled with people that I can't fathom how they got the job.

Advice to Senior Management

Either acquire someone or get bought. We are atrophying at status quo. New blood needed.

Pros

The great product line is very exciting. The people are generally nice, and very committed to their work.

Cons

Flat management structure and poor pay scale. Human Resources refuses to acknowledge that much of the staff is underpaid. By raising the employee cost of benefits, having minimal bonuses and small (3% in a good year) pay increases, I lost money every year working there. Thank God I left before food and fuel started getting craqzy expensive.

Advice to Senior Management

Better career training or tracking, particularly for IT employees. HR is killing SPSS.

Pros

established company: SPSS is reknowned for world class statistics software. It's a dream company for someone with great interest in stats to work for.
flexible work schedule: employees can work from home at least a day in a week
good benefits: SPSS has better medical, 401K, espp, etc. benefits than other similar companies
good stock: the stock price has been going up lately. It was a top priority of the company way back in 2004. The policy seems to be paying off.
talented coworkers: Chicago has many good universities, which is where SPSS gets its talent from. It's good to be in the company of smart people.
location: what's a better work location than chicago downtown? (but of course commute is an issue if you live in suburbs)

Cons

limited career growth: career growth in SPSS is very limited, and takes a long time to get promoted for about 95% employees. Only a chosen few climb the ladder faster. There are many people who have been in the company for 15+ years, which is good thing. But that's probably why career growth for fresh recruits is very slow.
low salary raises: this is somewhat tied to the above point. But year over year merit increases are very low, probably less than industry averages.
frequent layoffs: after the market crash in 2000, layoffs were as frequent as every quarter. Not a good ting for employee morale.

Advice to Senior Management

be better at employee management, provide opportunities to grow

Pros

Flexibility and support of the balance between work and family life. Casual attire makes going to work a little easier.

Cons

Inside sales is monotonous and some of the concepts of the software are difficult to grasp (and hence explain) when you've never seen the product in training.

Advice to Senior Management

Re-think some of your management staff