Sadly, the following items are virtually non-existent: leadership, communication, training, feedback on performance, ideas about how to do it better and encouraging people to speak out about improvements to the company. I have watched a number of people try to do things better only to be told by leadership, "why would you do it that way?" After a few of those encounters, people stop trying. In general, you will hear from the owners if it is not what they wanted, otherwise you are deaf, dumb and blind to what they want. No communication is especially difficult when the work slows (like it has now) and you watch people laid off each week with no discussion about what work might be coming up to keep people busy. Instead you are left to wonder if you will be next, and hear "you should be lucky to have a job" as your motivation. There is no active training program in any department unless you consider project work as training (the M3 owners do). Annual reviews are not encouraged by ownership and this is generally accepted by the department managers, so you have no idea how you are doing. Those of us who hope to be here after one or both owners retire, have no idea what plans they have for who takes over, who will do marketing and who will have the relationships with owners? The last thing you want to do is get on the black list of one particular owner. The worst part is you will never hear about what you did, from him, you will hear it from other people. The rumor mill is one of the only ways to figure out what may be going on.
