Pros
Fresh, clean workspace. Standing desks, ergonomic chairs, and tons of natural sunlight. Pay and benefits were fair/competitive. Most employees were friendly. Easily accessible location, close to airport with free parking. No competitors offering anything close for newspaper circulation products (and perhaps others). Comprehensive training/onboarding program. Depending on department/job, you may thoroughly enjoy your day-to-day duties and obligations.
Cons
This company has an cash problem (not enough). 2014 company financial goals were significantly missed (impacting expected bonus payments). Layoffs occur semi-regularly when Minneapolis job market is booming. No mission statement or defined values. No "extracurricular" company culture. As an employee, you will rarely (never?) feel valued. Very few from-inside promotions. No communication from mid-level (or upper) management about departmental/personnel changes, layoffs, bonuses, policy-changes, etc.You must hear things through grapevine to stay in the loop. A coworker may be laid off, and you won't know until an email bounces back. Thoughts: 6 months ago, I would have told you a company's main priority is their bottom line and making money, and Newscycle would agree with that. Other people complained about this aspect of Newscycle, and I couldn't grasp what they meant. It wasn't until recently that I've discovered that other companies have priorities to have fun, do good, create positive change - any other number of admirable priorities. Not solely making the company money like this company. While staying solvent is certainly admirable as well, it does not automatically craft an atmosphere one might enjoy working in. If you believe NCS has a mission statement or defined values beyond making money, you will be mistaken. It wouldn't even be that difficult for them to slap together a mission statement/set of values talking about serving the free press in the 21st century - something a little holistic. But alas, this isn't the case, and unfortunately the people who suffer from this are the employees. Why come to work? What are we doing here? We have no mission or values or guiding principles. It's simply: do as your manager says, meet your department goals and you might (read: won't) get a bonus. There is nothing fulfilling about this. This is even more true when the goal is money, and you are told if you meet your goals, you will get a monetary bonus, and they take that away from you too. This is a tech/software company, but you will not feel the "startup culture" you might expect from a software company, or from looking at the workspace. The amenities are minimal, and there is no culture. Departments are becoming increasingly less communicative, and you will feel the silo-ing between sales, implementation, tech, support, dev, and qa. There is minimal work communication, and essentially no culture/interaction outside of work. You won't see any organized volunteer/community service opportunities, no company sports teams, no employee recognition, no encouragement, no prizes, no fun games, etc. You'll never see a "bring your dog to work" day, or a habitat for humanity build. These take away from the company's main priority. There is a minimally attended holiday party, and monthly summer potlucks (you pay for these...). Some departments have good camaraderie, but working well together does nothing for company-wide culture.