1. While Zebra clearly promoted learning & development and provided opportunities for growth and new experiences at the same general job level, there was no clear career path outlining how to advance, and - for those who target growth into leadership as part of their career journey - there was limited opportunity for advancement.
2. Related to this, when hiring for leadership positions, there seemed to be a strong bias to candidates with work experience in consulting services (i.e., ex-consultants) - most of whom were external candidates. This was very limiting and frustrating to internal candidates who had built strong experience within the company and in whom so much had been invested by Zebra in their professional development (which seemed to be all mis-utilized by the general tendency to continuously hire leaders from the outside).
3. Also, advancement opportunity seemed uneven across different business functions (e.g., new leaders (Directors and above) were being named in IT, HR and Marketing almost every other year - some even jumping from manager to Senior Director within a couple of years vs other areas where senior individual contributors or managers stagnate for many years).
4. Lastly, while also trying to promote innovation, there was an aversion to attempts at relatively significant system- or process changes (even those that had a relatively good business case). The preference was in the general safety of smaller, incremental innovations or improvements.
