Pros
In terms of benefits and vacation, I believe Active is about average. I believe employees in the US have a deductible on their health care and pay a premium, whereas in Canada they have no deductible and pay nothing, although there are limits on health expenses (for example glasses/contacts are covered for $250 every 2 years). When I first joined Active, the company attitude was that they didn't care how long it took you, as long as you got your work done. Work 6 hours or 10 hours, it was all the same. People were relaxed, and although everyone was busy, managers, VPs and everyone else worked hard. Your job security was in doing a good job. People who weren't smart and couldn't do a good job didn't last long. The pay has never been that great, but it was a good atmosphere so people didn't mind that so much.
Cons
Since the original CEO of Active, Dave Alberga left and Active was bought by Vista Group, things went bad quickly. A lot of very qualified, dedicated and loyal people have been fired (although they also got rid of some people who weren't doing a good job). All upper management have been relocated to Dallas, which gives nobody any confidence that satellite offices will remain open, and also means that offices basically run unsupervised. Several offices have been shut down across the US. To make matters worse, the relocation of the services and departments from those offices to Dallas has been very poorly executed, and the people working new jobs in Dallas mostly have no clue what they are doing. There was no 'transition period' or chance for people to get up to speed. Despite all the firings, resources still seem to be scarce. Many departments are under-staffed, under-paid and over-worked, and people don't have the knowledge or training to do things the right way. Management seems to always have 'bigger things to worry about' than training their staff or fixing processes that aren't working. Orders from the executive level push the company to take on more and more clients, while leaving no resources to provide good products or services for them or existing clients. The result is an unhappy customer base. A lot of people I know have quit recently because they don't like how things are run, and don't feel they have any job security. I have heard from people working in Dallas that current CIO Greg Ingino wanders the office all day looking for people who aren't working hard enough or at their desks (I guess he has nothing else to do). Lower level employees (even those who aren't working for support or some other department where there are set shifts) are expected to clock themselves in and out even for bathroom breaks. This is not an attitude that breeds happy employees. I am not sure if Darko (current CEO) is doing a good job or not. I have never heard a single person say anything good about him, and he has no CEO experience. As someone else pointed out here in a review, he was one of the people responsible for turning Monster from the leading job site into a total mess. Dave Alberga was very popular in the company, but I think Darko is extremely unpopular. I have been working for Active a long time, and I am extremely good at my job. When I joined it was a good company, and I'm sad that things have got so bad. Ultimately, the CEO must be responsible for sacrificing his employees and destroying the camaraderie of the old Active in order to focus only on the bottom line. Currently I don't feel like I have any job security, or that executives or management are making good decisions. It's possible the company can still be saved, but until they get some competent management and work on all the internal problems, I would not advise anyone to work here at any level. My guess is that if major changes aren't made, Darko will start to sell off more and more of the company in order to try and save the bottom line. Jobs will go and keep going until only a tiny company is left. Then he will move on and leave the survivors to start from nothing.
