Pros
-There are some incredibly talented and dedicated folks who are a joy to work with. These people keep the lights on and fix things when the contractors don't know what to do. -Pay and benefits in Saskatoon couldn't be beat (especially at the management and director level), however in recent years other tech companies have been nipping at their heals for roles lower down. The "golden handcuffs" are silver or bronze at best. -I gained a lot of valuable experience at PotashCorp and got to see and do some cool things.
Cons
-Staff have been assured for years that the increasing number of contractors was to ensure that if layoffs came, the contractors would be the first to go. When the merger happened, dozens of IT staff were forced to train their own replacements who were contractors. As far as I know, no contractors were let go. Most of the functions performed by these staff will continue to exist for many years and have no end of life planned; the move was purely to reduce headcount to rather than to save money. -Massive outsourcing to Tata Consulting Services (TCS) has disillusioned many key staff. The quality of the work is extremely poor and the quality of service provided by IT has diminished significantly since these changes. Instead of building and providing great services, IT staff spend their time trying to herd contractors towards solutions. -Contractors are the solution to every problem in managements eyes; full time positions aren't even considered for long term initiatives that will last years. These contractors often cost significantly more than a local hire would cost (the rate can be as high as $150 to $300 per hour for many of these contractors doing simple things like data services ETL work or O365/Azure administration). -There is no plan in place to deal with departures of key staff in critical positions. In the past staff would move up through the ranks, gaining technical skill and domain knowledge along the way. Since these lower level functions are all being outsourced, there is no pool of candidates within the organization anymore to replace people after they've left or fill new positions. -Saskatoon office has basically been gutted. I'd be surprised if an IT department exists there other than the few key people who still work there.