Pros
My review is about a corporate job at Build-A-Bear Workshop. The atmosphere at the headquarters if very casual and friendly. You can bring your dog to work and you don't have to wear business attire. You can get an audience for your ideas pretty easily. There is a lot of room for innovation left in both the concept and the implementation of the core idea of Build-A-Bear. Because the company is small, the things you do actually make a difference to the business.
Cons
In some areas of the company there is strong pressure (by management) to not speak up when an employee's ideas conflict with upper management. There is also not a lot of transparency into key events in the company or within departments. This can and did create a level of distrust and also stands in the way of information flow that would help the company as a whole. Management did not show appreciation for efforts that went well above and beyond what someone would have expected in an employee. Coupled with the fact that they expect a tremendous amount of dedication and effort, it was easy to get burnt out. Moral was low across the board. The people who cared the most tended to be the ones who ended up leaving due to this very thing. External partners were treated with more respect then internal employees were. Some members of upper management were very condescending and at times cruel in their treatment of employees. Raises and reviews were not based on individual performance and were often tied to goals that were close to impossible to reach.
