Pros
• Four Winds has an excellent client roster and will allow you to interface with some great companies, so it can serve as a stepping stone for young, eager employees. • Depending on who you befriend, you can move up the ranks quickly and take on jobs that you might not have otherwise been qualified for. • In certain departments, you can take part in some of the "fun" initiatives that are designed to attract new talent and build a "cool" culture. These can be nice ways to break up the work day and meet new people. • The CEO is personable enough to try and get to know all employees at least on a superficial basis. It is nice that he makes an attempt to get to know everyone's name. • Certain departments have a very strong, respectful bond and those people seem to love coming to work.
Cons
As stated in previous reviews, there are some great people at Four Winds, but just like everywhere else, there are also some shady characters who are only out for themselves. They will throw their colleagues under the bus in a heartbeat if it will make them somehow look good or protect them if/when something potentially goes wrong. This kind of behavior is very much rewarded by senior leadership, who value a "hero mentality" and use every opportunity to recognize individuals, rather than the teams that worked together to achieve any success. If you make a mis-step, or have a colleague who chooses to spread gossip about you (because, sadly, gossip -- both personal and professional -- runs rampant among employees here, and it seems no one is safe or given the benefit of the doubt), you'll spend a lot of time and effort attempting to counteract it. As much as Four Winds is trying to build a strong, happy culture, they need to address the way they encourage employees to actually treat each other and work together vs. focusing on the occasional Friday beer keg or donut wall. As far as a product, the software is woefully out of date and has some very large roadblocks that are not always made clear to clients before they sign a contract, and leads to some pretty tough and uncomfortable conversations when the implementation team must manage expectations. There are some initiatives to strengthen the software, but enhancements take so long that it often feels like one step forward, two steps back. Competitors are advancing quickly and leadership takes a very reactionary approach, leading to changing/conflicting business goals and initiatives all the time. As far as work/life balance, I think overall Four Winds purports to do this very well -- people generally seem to work flexible schedules. However, there are some departments and roles in which this balance and flexibility are nearly obsolete. Depending on your role, you may be expected to work through nights and weekends and be available to address issues at any given time -- the urgency of these issues getting way overblown by management. They just switched to a "flexible" PTO plan, which they are advertising externally as "unlimited" but make very clear to employees that it is not truly unlimited and is instead "take what you need". Employees are allowed to take time off at the discretion of their manager, which, depending on your manager, may include a guilt trip or might not be approved at all based on business needs. There is no official record kept of days off anymore, but you can bet they are keeping track and will tout your time off (or lack thereof) if needed when it comes to recognition or career advancement. Overall, leadership truly puts clients' satisfaction -- no matter how difficult to attain and how unreasonable the asks -- at a much higher priority than employee welfare. I had colleagues who were inappropriately berated, deceived, and threatened by clients, and yet our leadership team bent over backwards to make sure that the clients' ridiculous demands were met, often punishing the employees further for "allowing" a situation to escalate. This is, again, a culture issue that is encouraged by the company in continuing to allow their employees to be abused and rewarding clients for this kind of behavior. Finally, the tangible benefits really leave a lot to be desired, as many others have stated. Many employees choose to purchase their own insurance as the coverage and premiums provided are so bad. Compensation is still not up to par with industry standards, and seems somewhat arbitrary.
