The previous CIO was never a good leader or cared for bringing the best to Grange, in my opinion. When It was announced he was retiring I was excited for the change that could come to the company. Grange has always felt like a Mom-and-Pop type of business as there are many families and husbands and wives who work there and have for many years. Everyone knows everyone and it just works well to get things done. This changed. The new CIO began to make Grange into the company he came from, Chase, by bringing a lot of his colleagues and friends to Grange in newly created positions. While doing this may have been needed to help streamline IT and identify and create resolutions to issues the company was dealing with, it did the opposite. It seemed to me that these people were just there for a paycheck and to save as much money as possible. I believe that management should identify ways to save and be fiscally responsible, but not by eliminating positions of hardworking, loyal employees. The new management style seemed to be "we tell you one thing, and do another." This created a sense of fear and mistrust in me and that is why I left. The last year I was an employee at Grange I did not get a raise despite my hard work on projects and managing lots of workload. The reasoning was, no money in the budget. This despite the year being a very low claim year and being told in All-Hands meetings that profits were up. It's almost as though IT was struggling because of all the newly created VP positions and those salaries.
There is very little advancement opportunities. I always felt like the rabbit chasing the carrot. It was always "next year," and "it's not in the budget for that training," or whatever excuse. There was never a "grown from within" mindset for talent. You had your job and that was it. Of course, if you were buddy-buddy with the IT management, you were "chosen" for other positions. In my time there, I know of personally 4 positions that were filled this way. Each time it made me feel completely inadequate and unqualified. In fact, most of IT is unqualified. There are those who just muddle through their positions on a daily basis and those who are actually doing the work.
