Pros
The people. There are number of people who have been with the company for a very long time, they know the business in and out and they are extremely valuable. Development opportunity – since the company is owned by Zurich, there are opportunities to work internationally on certain projects or a transfer to Zurich. At the department I worked at, the training was very good, management supported training courses provided by third party and also provided plenty of internal training. The carpool service sponsored by the company is very rare. They encourage employees to carpool, vanpool or taking the public transits.
Cons
People who have been with the company for a long time seem to be left out of promotions. Management does not recognize their importance and how valuable they are. They are often left on the sideline doing “special project”. Salary is generally lower, because they claimed there was Profit Sharing. However, Profit Sharing is going away in 2009 and there is no salary increase to make up the difference. The benefits used to be very good, but they are also changing in 2009 and not for the better. They are combining vacation days with sick days. Employees get a set number of pay-time-off, sick and vacation days both count toward the pay time off, so it is really up to the employees not to get sick. The company is extremely cost-saving minded. They don’t like to spend money on virtually anything.