Pros
I don't how salaries compare, but their benefits package is in line with the rest of the industry. The company upgraded their medical plan for 2015.
Most employees are amiable and fun to work with once they get to know you. Professional and hard-working for the most part. Trenches humor when things go wrong.
Business casual dress, access to C-levels when needed. It's still a small company so Atlanta employees can just walk down the hall to find whoever they need to talk to.
To know Birch you have to first understand their business model. Birch has grown by acquiring other small telecom companies. Birch's particular genius is that they are very good at quickly integrating an acquired company's CRM, billing, and products onto their own CRM platform. This allows them to quickly scale up customers and revenues without having to add a lot of headcount or maintain redundant IT systems. Birch has acquired a score of companies in the last six years, but still has only a single operating support platform and a single billing system. This brings certain benefits - one is that a job at Birch is almost recession-proof for long-term employees. They experienced some of their best growth during the recession. Also, to become this efficient they emphasis simplicity in every operational area - processes and procedures, documentation, business rules are usually very straightforward and easy to follow. Over-analysis and complexity are abhorred, especially in the COO's organization.
Cost management is more than a buzzword here. They make a genuine effort to eliminate waste, get rid of unprofitable products, put boundaries around reasonable customer support, cut their taxes, negotiate better terms with vendors, etc. This is just good business sense. A lot of folks on this board complain about how "cheap" Birch is, but at least Birch won't drive off a cliff by spending excessively and underpricing their service.
Life-work balance is generally good, although I work long days when we are in the middle of an acquisition.
Cons
Many employees are underutilized and do a lot of tasks that are below their pay grade. I see this occurring all the way up to the director level.
All important decisions are made by a small group of insiders. They are mostly hand-picked execs and mid-levels who have been with the company since almost the beginning.
Poor collaboration between departments. There is no project management or development process to speak of. Mid-levels (in my department) have trouble setting priorities and assigning ownership.
Birch had to retain a fair number of Cbeyond's employees when they acquired that company, but Cbeyond was an exception. When they buy a smaller company, Birch retains very few of that company's employees past the first few weeks following the merger. Most folks are laid off.
IT may be good at handling CRM platform migration, but they had a lot of trouble migrating my email and getting me access to databases and folders that I need to do my job.
Bottom Line - Birch is alright to work for if you need the job. Go elsewhere if you have other options.
