Decent mid-term stable but resting on laurels, hamstrung by legacy, few make a hard decision/disagree, going woke
Pros
Stable employment Fair/safe working environment Relatively fair performance review, promotion etc processes Very hard to get fired unless you show up to work drunk or steal something, basically Reliable profit sharing *ok* benefits *ok* time off (especially once you hit 5 years tenure) Decent career tracks Usually decent training/growth/education opportunities
Cons
Love to pat ourselves on the back for how amazing and morally superior we are Any change takes a very, very long time to manifest, if it does at all Salary & hourly pay would be better if there was more local competition (which there actually is, Hypertherm just is lagging behind and now playing catch up because of many people leaving and difficulty hiring) Way too "top-heavy" - lots of managers, and holy cow is the HR structure way too big Some toxic internal engineering team cultures that have driven out multiple highly skilled and necessary individuals All must bow to the business teams, especially the engineering development business teams Awful parental/sick leave policies Way too many cases where "one person" has full control and responsibility over a business critical task/job Wants to be a $1B company while still keeping "one foot" in the two car garage the company started in, which creates a total lack of necessary processes and even entire departments that need to exist but do not, yet they keep trying to warp the existing structure to make more and more growth work The growth that has occurred (purchased companies ,etc) is completely separated from the Upper Valley NH Plasma-based HQ People are too nice to the point that it hurts the ability to make necessary change Some people are amazingly underutilized, despite having skill-sets the company desperately needs to utilize Some people are not held accountable to actually do anything, despite being well compensated Significant "concrete stander" vs "carpet dweller" culture divide, with the office/home working "carpet dwellers" driving the culture and assuming their highly ideologically charged beliefs would apply across the actual working population of the company