Pros
If you work in the corporate offices or other larger offices (Davidson, Minneapolis, Tyler) then you will experience all the employee engagement initiatives in full force and they dedicate a lot of resources to these - fitness events, health fairs, green teams, community events, employee affinity/resource groups, etc. Being such a large organization, there is ample opportunity to advance your career, especially if you are location flexible. In some cases, like manufacturing, being willing to move would be required in order to advance your career beyond a certain level. Also, it is easy to find projects or opportunities to try alternative assignments with different teams to get a taste of different products, roles, etc. Most often this is encouraged development as long as core responsibilities on the team are covered.
Cons
The small and medium sized plants get much less employee engagement resources & activities. They most often have a much less open minded or less inclusive culture. At the plant level, too many times I saw poor people managers that were 1) promoted into the role and 2) kept in the role without improvement, chasing away good talent. White male extroverts get promoted. It’s an engineering company. Even if one is engineering minded, has worked alongside the engineering department for years, is highly regarded by peers and engineering management alike, SHE will often be passed over for promotion of up against a gregarious male. It comes down to interview perceptions and not how the individual will perform and lead in the role unfortunately. They are working to improve the number of women in leadership roles, but they have a ways to go and a LOT of mentalities to change. Sexual harassment was not uncommon at the plant, both in the office and on the production floor in the 10+ years I worked in multiple mfg plants.
