Pros
Outstanding health benifits (free health care including vision and dental). Great employee stock purchase plan. A solid 401K plan with Expeditors matching your contributions up to a certain percentage. The training programs to advance your career with Expeditors are top notch (and FREE). Everything is laid out in very detailed "development maps" that tell you exactly what you need to focus on for any specific job. Each training subject has a "training hours" value associated with it. Everyone in the company is required to complete 52 hours of training per year. Those who work hard and complete far more training than that are looked very highly upon when management is looking to promote. The management is by far the best I have ever worked for. They are very qualified and all seem to realize that they are there to help you grow in the company, not be your "boss". Basically all promotions are done within the company. I have not one supervisor or manager that didn't work their way up from an entry level position. Expeditors is very focused on organic growth. Expeditors also pays for many of the government certifications that are recognized within the entire freight forwarding industry. Right now I am working on my IATA/FIATA certification that Expeditors will pay for (along with a $500 bonus) if I complete it. After that, I will work on earning my U.S. Brokerage Licence that Expeditors will also pay for. Also, the computer programs and systems that Expeditors uses are great. Everything makes sense, and the things that don't actually get fixed when you point them out. Everything is unified across the globe with every Expeditors office as well. I could do my job at any office on the planet without having to learn a new system. That really helps in eliminating confusion between offices.
Cons
One problem we are having in my department right now is that we are running on a skeleton crew. Every single person in my department is working their ass off right now. And I know it's not going to get better either. There is one person in our department that is planning on leaving the country in about a month and according to my manager, there is no plan to replace him. What bugs me the most about this is that we will all get more work, but not more pay. Don't get me wrong. I make more money here than I have anywhere else. But the pay gap between the operations people (me) and management seems much larger than anywhere I have worked before. Every one of my supervisors drives a BMW or better. Thats definitely not the case with any of the ops people. I think the main reason for this is they way the bonus system works. Everyone gets a bonus depending on how well their department does for the month. The percentage of the "bonus pool" I get as an ops person is less than 1 percent. The percentage a supervisor gets is at least 10 percent. Mangagers get far more. Same with the sales guys. The operations people are the meat and potatoes of the company too. We process the shipments, track them, update the customer, bill the customer, fix billing issues, educate new customers on shipping procedures, take care of any problems our customers may be having, provide price quotes on new shipments, call many different airlines to find the best rates available, prepare all the needed paperwork, and do daily reports to make sure we aren't missing anything (among other things). In my opinion, if I am doing so much of the actual money making, my share of the bonus should be more than "less than 1 percent". Those are my biggest issues with Expeditors.
