Personable Onboarding with a Satisfying First 90 Days
Pros
- Great salary/pay for this role at this level - Remote work availability (for some roles - I think it's manager-dependent) - Decent health benefits (a handful of employee-subsidized medical insurance options to choose from in the U.S. - I am now saving $15 on an allergy prescription, and another prescription is now free, so that's a win for me) - Lots of energy around improving the technology infrastructure - I find its quick and easy to make an IT request. I submitted one last month and it got turned around within 48 hours. - Several executives are easy to have a straight-up conversation with. - On a more personal note, I really enjoy my manager. Some people have the gift of being good managers, and some do not; mine definitely has the gift. They've been with the company for a while and I appreciate their candor and agility when it comes to the work. They're good at both showing the team the big picture, but also helping us reframe our approach to projects and effort. For my first few days, they flew down to Charlotte to onboard me in person which I loved because (for me) onboarding into a remote role can be stressful and uncomfortable without someone there to pelt with questions :-)
Cons
- Onboarding was very high-level. Mine was largely focused on my job/responsibilities, which is fine given how quickly I needed to get acclimated to the work. But as a company with a large slate of products and offerings, I was looking for formal onboarding that included education on the company's history, strategy, goals, mission, core values; how it operates; what industries it serves; how it makes money and who/what it competes with; and what its products are and what they do. I wanted a visit to a production facility, too, so I could see where the sausage is made. Since I'm a self-starter, I found ALL the necessary resources on Columbus McKinnon's website (videos, product guides, blogs, etc.) so I took time on my own to do this learning. - This isn't unusual with respect to corporate America, but there's not a lot of racial/ethnic diversity at the corporate level of Columbus McKinnon (other than in Latin America and Asia, I assume). The company hasn't gotten to a place where diversity groups, DE&I messaging, and employee resource groups are really up and running/functional and widely promoted, but I've been seeing the embers beginning to glow on these efforts so that's great.
