sucks - Defense Analyst Ho-Chunk, Inc. Employee Review

Super friendly, very professional and flexible

Small, not much room for growth

There are dozens of companies and groups within Ho-Chunk. A few are well managed and have good people to work with. They offer hybrid positions if that is your desire. Many hourly people are capped at 40 hours and it seems several salary people get away with working that or less. The parking lot is pretty empty before 8 and after 5 and very sparse on Fridays throughout the year. That includes leadership. They have summer 9,9,9,9,4 weeks which is nice. Plenty of logo apparel and occasional paid lunches. Decent IT resources to work with. Benefits were OK. Pay was more competitive at higher levels. They immerse you in the Ho-Chunk culture with many opportunities to learn if you have the time. You feel like a small part of the community and are happy to work for their benefit.

Unless you are placed, they cap initial offers at 25% of market, so do know that before interviewing you will get a lowball offer and may want to spare yourself the time. There is a bonus structure that is more consistent for some groups than others. I experienced consistent payout; however, poor company cash management delayed this bonus payment a few months recently and puts you in the spot of playing the deadbeat with vendors each week. They even canceled the holiday parties. Outside of the gaming operations, there are legitimate reasons for long term concerns. Promotions are difficult to come by (and to give to deserving employees) where they may change the terms after the employee has done their part. They only really are available on an annual basis and they replace merit raises. While with a Native owned company it makes sense to offer advantages to Native employees as part of the mission, this company had the most extreme examples of nepotism, sexism, and age discrimination I have ever encountered which is why I would avoid against selecting them if you have other alternatives. Multiple executives are not Native and yet hired their children and partners while giving them extra perks not available to common employees. HR had the some of the worst offenders. It is not uncommon for people to leave the company on very bad terms with complaints filed. Company ethics are questionable at executive levels, but are better at lower levels. I found the daily work environment to be incredibly frustrating and draining. There were a high number of poor performers creating extra errors and work for the high performers to correct. This was tolerated and tacitly encouraged. Complaints were punished. With so many companies, strategies and priorities shift constantly and much must be figured out on the ground level without much time for proper planning. This is not really appreciated by top management and they do not willingly invest proactively to procure applicable training to best manage the new skills required. While this is all challenging and interesting, it exists in an environment without acknowledgement of challenges, recognition of accomplishments, or simple encouragement. Outside of the CEO and the good operations people, this company is severely limited by executive talent that seems too small for the wild structure and aggressive growth focus. There is a critical void of good top leaders in functional areas creating an atmosphere of fear and distrust. I liked the work, but dreaded going into work at the same time because of who I worked for and felt helpless to make positive changes. My advice for a career here would be to work remote as much as possible, wall yourself off, and be OK with not fixing other people's mistakes.