Pros
-PG had a incredible commitment to having an open and inviting culture. -Clarity and perceived unity by the Executive Leadership Team. -Monthly company wide meeting created a sense of family connectedness that facilitates investment by employees. -Accessibility to executive leadership seemed to be abnormal and positively affected my feeling of importance and accountability to the company. -Compensation features such as the stress account ($1000 yearly bonus made available for things such as gym memberships or childcare) -Opportunity for advancement: I started at PG with a promise that I would have an opportunity to move into another role within a year if i performed well, and that promise was kept. -Traveling Opportunities: Although Many employees of Populus Group have an opportunity to travel all across the country to their various locations as well as customers. -Flexible Hours: PG claims that their culture allows for people to have a positive work/life balance and in my experience this was 100% true. -Opportunity for additional education. Pg provides various forms of free education opportunities. I got to experience seminars, and webinars by top speakers. They also will provide tuition reimbursement for employees who want to pursue additional education. Unfortunately I did not take advantage of these great offers enough but they were readily available. -Business Acumen Development. Because of the fact that PG provides staffing solutions for so many industries, employees of PG are exposed to so much valuable information in the business community. As a fairly entry level employee, I was privileged to sit in on calls and communicate with executives level employees of many top businesses in various industries. This was an experience I value tremendously. -The CEO Bobby: It was truly a pleasure working for Bobby Herrera. Every single employee that starts at Populus Group gets a personal call from him before their official start date, and it constantly amazes them that the CEO would take the time to connect with them personally. This tone that he sets from the first week carried through my entire experience at PG. He was personable, present, consistent, and most of all inspiring. As someone who aspires to be a great leader, watching Bobby Herrera lead was incredible. Executive Team: Leader like Tom Mehl, Anita Miguet, Ed Herrera, Ron Lippit, and Scott Carter were established as the primary leaders during my time at PG. I can honestly say that in my experience, all of them were incredibly personable and relatable. Many of them went out of their way to invest in entry level employees like myself.
Cons
-HR: PG is a young company in multiple ways. Its less than 15 years old and most of the employees are young. This combined with the open culture leads to certain things. I feel as if the culture was not inviting for certain types of people. I saw many conservative type people struggle to work at PG because of how crass, inappropriate, and uncouth the conversation in the office could sometimes be. This was usually in the context of joking, but there seemed to be very little consideration for the fact that everyone may not be comfortable with certain kinds of language or conversation. I even feel as if many employees felt pressure to be and acted more crass and inappropriate then they naturally were because of the culture being that way. Because of my background, it didn't bother me, but I know a lot of great people that would struggle at PG because of it. The HR department has to be more visible. I was at PG for almost 2 years and I don't remember much mention of the HR department and I never remember any time there was any kind of intentional representation presented to our office. -Too many managers: It seemed as if PG had more management positions than it needed. It was somewhat confusing as an employee see so many "leads" in the different departments unless you were on that team. I think a lot of the teams could be consolidated. -Tenure Based Promotion: This trend began to change somewhat right before I left PG, but for the most part it seemed as if a lot of the management hiring was based off of tenure. This is good in someways because it shows opportunity for advancement, but I feel as if many teams were being led by people who weren't fit for a management position. I don't believe everyone needs to promote into management. Just because they were there the longest doesn't mean they were the best for a job. I saw this trend change somewhat with some recent hires from outside our company, but that was a con throughout my time there. -Training: I worked in two departments in PG and in both I feel as if the training I received for the job I was asked to do was not very quality. I also saw people in other departments struggle with the same issue. The resigning is probably because the workforce population is young and you do have some natural turnover in key areas, but whatever the reasoning I be leave it needs to be addressed. -Team Chemistry: In both departments I worked in there was a time period were I felt as if i was on the "outside" on our team. There would be meetings I wasn't included in or informed about as well as other things that just led me to in general just feel not on the same page. I think it would help to have more set team building opportunities. -Organizational Clarity: Because PG provides various solutions for customers, there are a lot of departments and roles. I don't feel as if the employees are very aware of what goes on in different departments which leads to an isolated affect that inhibits investment. It has to be more fluid and connected.
