Pros
As a subsidiary of Safeway Inc., BHN has an innate financial stability. The Credit Card/Gift Card market is an expanding one, with exponential growth in the last several years. Owning a significant portion of that market, BHN provides it's employees with a stable job opportunity with limited fears of mass layoffs. The benefits are great, and they even provide a pension plan. BHN is also considerate of employees with families, respecting the work-life balance and enabling and encouraging its employees to telecommute when needed. Employees are completely connected from day one via Blackberry and remote VPN access. The administrative assistants at BHN are some of the best I've ever encountered, always greeting employees with a smile and supporting them in anyway they can. The HR department is fantastic at creating a great welcome for new employees, creating an excellent start to a new job.
Cons
Like any company that has grown large quickly, certain organizational issues arise. BHN tends to be highly political, with tenured employees wanting to do things the old-fashioned "Blackhawk Way", frequently shutting down ideas from new employees. A lack of strong leader ship from senior management has engendered "silos" within the organization, with groups operating autonomously of each other without attempting to align goals, collaborate, and leverage infrastructure and resources effectively and efficiently. Senior management is highly removed from the day to day operations of the company, leaving junior employees to struggle with finding ways to make divisions profitable. Due to a lack of cohesive vision, employee goals aren't aligned and you often see teams working at cross-purposes. There's an overall culture of CYA, with employees fearing to take ownership of projects, ideas, and to take initiative to do new things. Legal and Fraud resources rule the company, often hindering progress by making things more difficult than necessary for fear of potential lawsuits. This litigious culture hinders the nimbleness of the company, making it difficult to respond quickly in a market where technology rules and the ability to react quickly is necessary to succeed.