Pros
I've been an employee at REI for 8 years and I'm very proud to say this. No company is perfect but REI really goes the distance to make employees happy. Winning one of the Top Workplaces award really exemplifies this. It was the employees who provided the nominations so that tells you that the majority of the staff enjoy working here. My assumption is that many of the negative remarks posted here are by employees who were asked to leave REI because they were poor performers and also it looks like a small number of these employees are putting up multiple posts to drive REI's rating down.
Cons
Some managers could benefit from soft skills training so they can better relate to their employees. The 360 review process and the hiring of a professional/personal coach is helping to address this need.