Pros
Costco offers great compensation in the form of high pay, good health benefits (including medical, dental, vision), 401k, paid vacation, holidays off and paid, sick pay and twice yearly bonuses for hourly employees. The company focuses on promoting from within, so there are opportunities to advance, specifically for men. The senior management is respected and admired by the majority of the employees. The mission statement is inspiring and well known to all employees; one of the five tenants is "take care of the employee."
Cons
Costco has a lot to work on in terms of diversity in its management; specifically the mentoring and promotion of women. Costco lacks any off/on ramps for women in supervisory or managerial positions who have families or want to start them. They do allow the standard maternity leave (6 weeks) including the 12 weeks required by FMLA laws, but after that they do not allow their managers/supervisors to work a short-term reduced schedule or anything along those lines. In my particular warehouse there are no private locker rooms, bathrooms or anywhere a woman can use a breast pump. Right now, the "Electrical Room" is where we are allowed to pump. Furthermore, the numbers just don't lie. In my warehouse out of 28 managers and supervisors only 6 are women. This is definitely not representative of the warehouse, where almost 60% of the population is women. Sadly, it is not much better at the senior/corporate management level. Middle and lower management has a lot left to be desired. They are undereducated and undertrained in HR functions; there is no onsite HR manager in the warehouses. This leaves the managers vulnerable when making promotion and disciplinary decisions. The vision of top management is broken at the warehouse level. Most managers are grossly undertrained, under qualified, undereducated and as a consequence they manage with a dictatorial, contemptuous style that destroys the morale and confidence of the employees. Most employees feel the tenant, “take care of the employee" is entirely disregarded by the management at the warehouse level. There is understandably a low level of autonomy at the hourly level, but this coupled with disrespect and disregard of employee input by the managers weakens the company. Once promoted to management the game totally changes. Lower managers are expected to work 9.5 hours a day, with split days off. It is unspoken, but known that the warehouse should be the managers' first priority, family a distant second. These lower level managers are often promoted on merits of loyalty and it being "their time" rather than on any level of competence or qualification. They are told to "get control" of their employees; this is about the extent of their training and mentoring by the upper managers. All of these factors contribute to an uninspired and overworked management staff that disregards the ideas and needs of the employees.