Vantaggi
Generally nice, professional colleagues. Very outwardly friendly and driven company founder who seems to genuinely care for, and about, his employees. Nice office space in downtown Montreal. Gym membership and lots of little perks that tend to round out the fact that pay is a bit on the lower side and that regular yearly raises are rare but for a select few. Lots of fun activities that help to ensure team spirit. Very well funded company through family money and much in the way of government grants, credits, subsidies and other bonuses arising through the company's affiliation with the Federal Government's Accelerated Growth Service.
Svantaggi
Very top down controlled and micromanaged company. Lots of talk about loyalty here, but what you realize very quickly is that loyalty here is simply a one way avenue, not a two way street. This exemplifies the root of the key problem here, which is a lack of any real entrenched leadership outside of the direction from top management. Top management dictates everything here, essentially running every department on a day to day basis despite the presence of people who are actually supposed to be in charge. Very frequently this often occurs, even to the point of frequently temporarily placing people who are supposed to be in charge of running departments on a day to day basis into foot soldier or junior roles alongside their subordinates so that top management can directly administer things, in the disingenuous name of changing priorities and emergencies (this is almost comically referred to as "collaborative basis". This is done on a regular basis, simply so top management can administer in a fashion that is to their comfort zone (essentially giving orders/instructions in a very authoritarian way to individuals who are all of a sudden expected to morph into passive foot soldiers). Of course, understandably, any smart, self-directed individual who are supposed to be leaders in charge of a particular function, understandably, would find this to be incredibly offensive. What's more, is that very often this is done simply, in order to implement initiatives that typically have very little staying power or which ultimately have little impact. Couple that with the fact that nearly every single member of the company executive team, as well as those in charge of administrative functions are all in their positions due to their personal connections to members of top management (another seemingly deliberate, conscious choice to ensure that things are essentially dictated from the top) . What you end up with, of course, is a foot soldier environment that essentially distrusts intelligent, self directed individuals., and where such individuals who are hired in the first place, feel frustrated. The irony is that many of these individuals were actually originally hired because of their skills, management or administrative competencies, but sadly get roped into being foot soldiers and find their talent being just absolutely wasted. Essentially this happens largely because of top management's inability to see past micromanaging on a day to day basis. As a result, this has caused many obvious high level performers or those who are supposed to be real managers to leave the company for other opportunities out of frustration. This has occurred much to the detriment of the company, whose revenues after a brief 2 year period of actual encouraging growth in 2012 and 2013, have stagnated completely. The unfortunate situation is that many exceptional performers are often hired for their intelligence, often seeing exceptional results initially for a brief period of time. However, what these individuals end up realizing is that there ultimately is no intention of top management ceding or delegating day to day control of particular departments to such individuals in order to maintain very tight, top down control. Since such individuals leave due to the constant invasions and micromanagement, there is a severe leadership vacuum since only those of a more passive, docile nature remain. You will hear a lots of talk about how the company culture makes it special. You will also hear from time to time, about how the company has had to watch out for "smart people who lack the competence to work in the way that top management likes". You will also hear a lot about team and family, and how "we're all in this together" . Don't believe any of it. This is simply a way of top management trying to save face by creating an us vs them mentality and ultimately refusing to alter this management style in order to refrain from micro-managing, and to ultimately entrench exceptional performers as leaders.
