Great product, Poorly managed company
Pros
The company produces a great product. I have been happy to work with FWI customers and honestly believe the core products are good. There is a lot of room for growth at the company. There are a lot of internal promotions and management is good at promoting from within. Numerous people get promoted out of entry level positions into positions of higher responsibility. The people there are great, but the good people seem to be leaving at an alarming rate. The new office is nice.
Cons
The company does not provide sick days - people have to use their vacation if they are sick. This results in a lot of people coming into work sick. It is disgusting. HR is a complete joke. As another reviewer noted, they frequently gossip about other employees, so you can't trust that they will keep things confidential. The employee handbook for 2017 hasn't been made available to employees yet. Professional development is another joke. They rolled out "professional development plans" that no one takes seriously. Management does not seem to care about the professional development of their employees. People are promoted to management positions based on their technical skills rather than their ability to lead or manage. Many managers revel in meetings instead of making things easier for the people they are managing. The process to fire a low performer is long and arduous and poor performing employees are kept around way too long to do damage. Sexual harassment seems to be tolerated with no action taken against employees who have had repeated complaints made against them. Cronyism is rampant. If you are friends of the CEO you will succeed. Even if you fail repeatedly, as long as you are one of the CEO's favorites you will get promoted. The upper management of the company tends to make decisions about a week in advance and is very resistant to improving processes based on past mistakes. Instead of creating a system that prevents problems, they seem to have an attitude of leaning on hard working employees to clean up messes.