// Salaries are generally disappointing. Performance bonuses have become increasingly rare. Profit sharing varies (naturally), but the deposit has hardly been worth the trip to the bank, the past few years.
// Insurance benefits are also on the decline, especially under the convenient cover of healthcare policy changes.
// Upper management is disconnected from the ground floor. (Read literally, I actually run into them all the time on the elevator or in the cafeteria -- which is kind of cool -- but it's not as if they're typically interested in having a serious conversation with a grunt like me, regardless of how long or short.) All focus is now on the bottom line and shareholder success. Employee satisfaction is measured by results of corporate surveys given annually to a random collection of execs, directors, managers, engineers, technicians, and admins or by exec-led 'initiatives' that result in more useless internal surveys and endless 'data collection'. Very weak response to poor survey results has left me further disappointed in upper management's interest in employee success or happiness. The same feedback regarding salary and benefits is given over and over again, through avenues like those 'initiatives', communication with direct management during performance reviews, and Glassdoor reviews, yet the response is always free t-shirts, an extra beer on the house during a company happy hour, or renting out an amusement park 100 miles out of town on a Sunday (which apparently used to be an annual tradition that fell off a few years ago). Personally, I'd much rather do away with all this nonsense in favor of having a couple of deserving colleagues get a legitimate raise.
// Work-life balance varies from department to department and from team to team, but across the board, groups are being asked to do more with less. Rising attrition rates are resulting in lost knowledge/expertise, which isn't helping. Not all of those positions left open are being filled, in efforts to cut costs, so workloads are generally increasing, and deadlines/schedules/expectations are not adjusting accordingly. Direct management understands and empathizes but has no authority to effect change -- only to respond with empty praise and patronizing positivity.
// Even though the people are great (see 'Great people' under Pros), their frequent grumbling/venting is the staple of our very poor morale. It's not easy to get motivated in an atmosphere so jaded.
// Sometimes, the elevators take forever. (Could be a Pro, I suppose, if you're health-conscious and willing to take the stairs.)
