Pros
The team at BE, excluding leadership, is exceptionally creative, adaptable, and hardworking. Everyone is intelligent, capable and great to be around. Some of my favorite people I have ever worked with! The internal team culture was once positive and collaborative, with enjoyable social events, up until the last year or so...
Cons
BE's decline as a positive workplace and successful company is largely due to the CEO's leadership. A shift towards rigidity, control, and blame has accompanied business struggles, with layoffs being the primary response instead of investing in solutions like sales, despite employee suggestions. This has led to a fatigued and disengaged workforce burdened with retention responsibilities. BE spends a lot of money to have third party vendors tell them what to do (for example aggressively over-hiring), money that could have been better spent investing in a business development strategy that would actually be bringing in more business. Instead, they blame the staff, let folks go, and try to sell busy work for a fraction of the cost. The return to a 4 day in-office mandate (from previous 2 day), purely benefiting the CEO who lives around the corner, created hardship for many commuters who live on the outskirts of the city. Many employees voiced their opinion on how much better they worked from home to no avail. He is convinced that being together in the office as much as possible is the key to success. Leadership prioritizes external image over internal well-being, at times undermining employees with clients in meetings. It is performative leadership. It is very important that BE "appears" to be successful with leadership initiatives through performative actions on LinkedIn, or articles on the website regarding teaching and leading, but behind closed doors at the BE office it's a very different story. The CEO isn't listening to others because one can't listen well when they constantly speak over everyone. This leadership style is perceived as unapproachable, transactional, and resistant to dissenting opinions, a stark contrast to the previous culture. There used to be an anonymous internal portal for feedback. BE got rid of it when the feedback became "too negative" instead of dealing with the issues directly. This place does not want to hear that they are doing anything wrong, how they can improve, or that their employees have things to say. Actions speak louder than words, and "if you have anything to chat about, come to my office" isn't really a genuine invitation but performative. All of this negative energy is costing them clients and new work. Lastly, unprofessional communication from the CEO, including emotionally charged messages and outbursts, have staff on edge due to his mood swings and paranoia. BE's continued operation under this leadership style is questionable. It's the CEO's way, or the highway. Why do the other partners not stand up and make changes? Everyone follows orders, even if they don't make sense, as if under some regime. There are other ways to do things, to operate a business. But they put people in boxes and don't want to hear your ideas - unless they paid you as a third party consultant. It had so much potential to be great!
