Pros
The employees I worked with are some of the most talented, hard-working, skilled, and knowledgeable people I have worked with in my 22+ years of being a Sr. level Project Manager, regardless of industry. They genuinely care about the business and the customers they support, both internal and external. All other departments within corporate, have strong leaders who are empowered to make decisions in the best interest of their employees and departments. This is evident with the genuine respect and admiration they are shown by their teams and business partners.
Cons
Corporate IT is a one-man show - everything must be approved by the CIO...even team hires. It is by sheer dumb luck, and the sweat and tears of the programmers and developers, and non-managerial employees, that this department even functions. Mid-level management is not empowered or even trusted to make decisions for their departments/teams based on their years/decades of experience, let alone the employees. They expectations of their jobs are to be glorified 'babysitters'....and do so simply based on 'feeling' because there are no data-supported quality or performance metrics being used. It's completely subjective as to whether or not someone is "working". Experience and expertise are not valued or considered an asset...until the CIO runs into trouble and then they are calling people out of retirement to fix what they broke, or trying to make others the scapegoat for their incompetence. I could write an entire dissertation on my 3.5 years at this company, that ultimately ended in my walking out with nothing lined-up. That, in and of itself, should tell you everything you need to know, but I will leave you with the words of the Senior "leadership" and "management" teams, instead: When a Sr. Leader came to me and a team manager seeking advice on how to motivate employees and I said, "micromanaging isn't the answer. As a leader, you should insulate the employees from the chaos so they can spend time doing the work and delivering", I was told, and this is a direct quote, with a chuckle/laugh before, "No! I am NOT going to do that! If I have to feel it, they are going to feel it too!" Regarding a major business implementation, "We won't really know the true impact to the business until we go live" After employees expressed concerns over their jobs/department being viable post go-live of a major implementation, "We don't know what the org chart will look like after we go-live". The expectation is that everyone works with an anvil dangling over their heads wondering if they will even have a job in a few months. "BEK doesn't want seasoned, experienced professionals. They want young, fresh, hungry employees who will do what they're told and don't know any better." "BEK doesn't want planning, project plans, or documentation....just introduces bureaucracy...they just want things to get done." "Your job is to do what you're told and try not to p!ss anyone off." "Nothing is going to change. I can't change it and you can't change it. We just have to do what we're told to do even if it's not our job." When asked why tasks aren't getting done on time despite limited resources and them working nights and weekends without notice, "We have an EMPLOYEE problem!" When asked what incentive teams have to work "harder" when they're already being asked to do more with less and everything is treated as an "emergency", I was told, "Their paycheck is their incentive." As I said, I could go on and on. My advice to you, if you are looking to work in the PMO or anywhere else in the Corporate IT department, is to not run, but set a world-record sprint in the other direction....any other direction. After posting this, there's going to be that auto-generated response from HR apologizing for the negative experience and to reach out to them. You should also know that multiple people on multiple occasions have spoken to HR about their experiences and yet, here we are. Like I said, RUN.