Pros

Among my professional associates the most common thing heard is that the personal caliber of most artnetters is very high, with almost everyone at the company being approachable and quite enjoyable to spend the bulk of our week interacting with. Among most departments there is a strong sense of esprit de corps, and the atmosphere is very laid back. Management and supervisors are always appreciative of personal and non-work obligations and I've never had a problem taking necessary personal time for family and other issues (proper vacations are another story).

The company has always shown an interest in developing their existing resources and promoting from within before hiring outside (with some exceptions). Many of our senior employees have changed positions or departments more than once during their length of tenure with the company.

Cons

Although there's a strong team sense in each department, the company is very compartmentalized according to those departments. As the site's available services have expanded over time, those services and their administration wasn't integrated -or was integrated badly- with the rest of the site and service structures. It's very common for two to three people to be handling a single client's account and be only partially aware of all aspects of that account.

On a company-wide level, there's very little long term planning, and very little bigger picture strategy is evident in the release of new products. A consequence of this is that there is little clear goal definition or benchmarks, and deadlines are unreliable. Additionally there's very little consistency in personal accountability.

Advice to Senior Management

The company needs some serious flexibility. Information needs to be better integrated company-wise to facilitate transparency (steps are slowly being made in this direction, but it's not a universally mandated push as much as the initiative of some members of upper management). Long and short term goals need to be much better defined both at the company and department levels. Be clearer about what people will be held personally accountable for and how. Set clearer policies and stick to them.