Pros
Relatively autonomous schedule. Good coworkers as far as your peers go. Donuts on Thursdays?
Cons
I would say the cons outweigh the pros by far. Where to start? I guess where all the issues come from--management. The CEO does not create the kind of environment that fosters confidence and trust amongst his employees. This is a trickle down effect. It takes it's toll on middle management and that takes a toll on their teams. At the end of the day, no one's input matters because if it isn't what the CEO wants, the concept is squashed. This often leads to wasted time. Teams will begin working on a concept, only to have middle management or CEO nix the concept completely or do a total 180. It is very hard at PFL to feel like your work has value when so much time and energy goes into a project only to be brushed away or completely redone by middle or upper management. The turnover rate is extremely high and yet they can't guess why. Let's say you could swallow all of the above and still do your job day to day. A much bigger problem is that there is no where to advance at PFL. They are infamous for their lateral movement of people. They will create completely new roles, assign further duties and teams to someone, and yet there is no actual advancement. It's just a new title, not a promotion. The corporate structure at PFL is simple. CEO, 5-6 C suite managers, and team managers. The 5-6 C suite employees have all been there since college and aren't going anywhere, so unless you're going to move to "team lead," which is only relevant to one department, there's nowhere to advance. PFL will give you more responsibility with the promise of more pay in the future and then never deliver. I've watched them deny a raise of any kind (not even 3% to cover annual inflation) to some of the most hard working, intelligent people I've had the pleasure of working with. It's not valuing your employees and it's wrong. This company will keep getting employees because it's the only real business in a tiny town. People don't have much other option if they're looking to make a salary with benefits instead of working at a coffee shop. I think it's important to note that I'm not a disgruntled employee. I didn't get fired, left on good terms and learned some good stuff while I worked at PFL. But there are some serious management issues that have created a depressed culture at this institution. It's interesting, most of the people who seemed to enjoy their jobs at PFL were the employees who didn't ever come in much contact with upper management.
