Pros
Great people who are capable, highly skilled, and motivated to succeed. It is a wonderful thing to genuinely enjoy working with your co-workers and department/Unit heads. Pay for Performance is a Pro for my salary, but a Con to the company as a whole (see Cons and Advice). Training lives in both Pro and Con. Management invests time in training as they care deeply about development. Training has greatly improved as it has implemented many tools to be more engaging. Most of the “approved training subjects” have a lot to offer. Good time off Some nice benefits include company contributions to Health Savings and a percentage of 401k matching. The lowest tier insurance around, but they do provide insurance.
Cons
Pay for Performance is a fast track to lowering the morale of over half any company. Success is no longer shared by a teams, but instead hoarded by a few. Pay for Performance either requires too much time/money or is grossly inaccurate. The middle ground compromise of this results in both bad outcomes. Pay for Performance is alluring in theory, but in reality its practice has hampered teamwork, fostered distrust, and created a false feedback loop of “Yes Men” that is dangerous to the company. Rather than driving away “low performers,” the mass effect of this pay scale has resulted in driving out high performers who felt undervalued. Rapidly increased turnover has proved costly and demoralizing. Several years ago I would have felt no qualms about listing my name and position with my feedback, but there has been far too much retaliation of late. Perhaps the previous lawsuit left many in an adversarial mindset? Limited Training scope has supplanted job-specific learning. Training has been improving, but the department possess no real qualifications, degrees, or relevant experience. Nepotism is rampant with the majority of trainers being direct children of upper level executives. Strong family relations and friendships (prior to hiring) fast track individuals for promotions, management, and higher salaries. Fortunately, some family members and friends have proved invaluable in key roles, but its worth noting that many (including myself) have worked twice as hard to achieve the same role and often pick up slack. The time consuming hiring process limits our options to hire whomever stuck around; Meanwhile, higher talent applicants are already several months into their jobs at other companies.