Pros
- The physical environment is quite nice and comfortable (well as long as more than 3 people don't want to use the restroom at the same time). This is the 3rd office we've had in VA since I started and they've designed it from the ground up. They do an admirable job of making it a pleasant place to perform your job. They provide lunch once a week and provide other small surprises throughout the year. The Team Environment people are amazing. - There are some truly great people who work here. I've met some great friends and there really are many people here that live the 3 tenets That CI advertises as their ore beliefs. - The Health benefits are very good. About the best package you will find outside govt. if you are single.
Cons
Unfortunately CI depends on surface level benefits like a free lunch or a Cornhole Tournament to but a nice shine on what is really a glorified assembly line; complete with the industrial revolution reminiscent problems. - Compensation: The compensation is minimal for the volume of work demanded. They use a system called performance based earning. This is approached not unlike the way a server in a restaurant will make a lower wage as they can supplement their earnings via tips. At CI it is done via productivity monitoring. You make a minimal base salary, and then there are a series or incentives that you can potentially earn based on pure statistical performance. This is how they get around the concept of standard of living or annual raises. They claim that you control your own pay, and can simply earn more based on performing better. The interesting part is that if you don't reach these goals you don't just make your base salary, you are put on a performance plan, and then terminated. Making these earnings less a bonus to your salary, but instead a level of production that is demanded. Another facet of this program is that while you will sign an offer sheet with the details of these incentives and bonuses, they can and will be changed later, but not with your agreement. If a team seems to be consistently out earning, the PBE can be adjusted to make it harder to reach those incentives. This leads to another problem, the "raise" system is based on being able to consistently meet or exceed the goals of this program. PBE is measured monthly, by exceeding for 3 straight months you can increase your base salary by a small percentage, similar tiers can be achieved for 6 months or a year (this is not transparent information though, I had to learn about it via fellow employees, and Management does not monitor for the employee reaching these tiers, so you will have to request them). This becomes a problem as with the fluid nature of the PBE. Sometimes due to a number of circumstances the PBE will not be valid that month, since you did not out earn it, it does not count as a step towards your next pay tier. This happens quite often and trying to get your first raise may take you several years. Of course all things can be changed, and I've spoken with several people that were offered the raises without officially maintaining the required stats, while others had to spend months fighting for them Politics go a long way. -Leadership/Promotions: I fully believe that upper management thinks that everything is as wonderful as those Great Places to Work Surveys say. There is a significant buffer between upper management and the SS/Operations teams that make up the majority of the employee base. Middle management is were the information control seems to start. We take regular surveys to give feedback (positive or negative) to the company, but these are not anonymous, they actually go to your direct supervisors. Negative feedback or grievances can and will follow you in your time with this company and can essentially get you black listed. Despite the growth of the company, advancement opportunities are slim, there is a great deal of lateral movement, but not much for advancement. If you have earned the reputation as being a malcontent on one of these surveys (whether justified or not) these opportunities will likely be closed to you. I do think there are great people trying to be great managers, but the Brand trumps all. Lastly MOD system: This is a company wide policy of MODifying behavior. Which is a scary concept in itself, but that is the idea. Employees are instructed to assign errors to other employees if they see something in the work process that may disrupt them in any way from doing their role. There are guidelines, but the practice is inconsistent and can cause resentment/unbalance. These errors statistically calculate your accuracy on the performance based earnings. IF you do not reach the predetermined accuracy, you CANNOT out earn. So this is a system where fellow employees are in control of each others paycheck. This can cause friends to let errors go, while marking the same errors on other inkers. These are also not Anonymous, so an employee is well aware who has marked one of these error on them. An error that has the potential to greatly affect the monthly earnings of that employee. While we are assured that animosity will not be tolerated in this system, there is no way to police it. MODs will always be inconsistent and an unjustifiable way to hold an employees earnings hostage.