A Bully Surrounded by Pliable Minions
Pros
This company has hired some amazing people over the years and the bond that you can build with colleagues will last beyond your tenure with the company. Since management is the blind leading the blind, even those with low levels of qualification in their roles can earn a “Pride premium” aka above market salary compensation in exchange for loyalty, tolerating incompetence, or playing politics. I heard that the Nespresso machine at HQ is pretty sweet too… I’m sure it will be fixed any day now.
Cons
This is not an environment that is pro-women. If it wouldn’t be socially unpalatable, the CEO would have already terminated its existing Maternity Leave policy as he deems it “an objective failure in terms of ROI.” In the Search & Staffing business, there are no women in senior leadership. Nothing is too low for these people – even firing someone undergoing breast cancer treatment. Public berating is a common motivational, or de-motivational, tool. They are rarely based on the materiality of someone’s mistake, and are generally just the CEO embellishing a scenario to use against someone that is out of favor. I wouldn’t say that someone left every OGP meeting crying, but it was a common enough occurrence to where we developed coping mechanisms and support networks. My personal favorite was when a Managing Director was shouted down in a company-wide town hall that was organized in an attempted to boost morale.
