Vantaggi
Beer machine, and some decent employees. Some aspects of work life balance as well as some events company hosts like Global Relay grand prix to support cycling.
Svantaggi
Global Relay is a thoroughfare for people coming and going. Over the last 5-7 years it's seen coming and going of excellent developers as well as managers, when it all started, now after multiple waves of great employees leaving, it's seen a huge decline in corporate culture its moral and business values are diminishing every year if not every month. But wait a minute ? how can a "Best managed company" and one with so many awards end up in such a place. Simple. CIty needs sponsorship, Global Relay needs awards. Every corporate spending has been a disaster in every way, wasting over half a million dollars on creating a rooftop (to bolster the corporate image) that nobody uses except for few times a year, or other such spendings raise eyebrows, instead of focusing on increasing employee's salary. Instead people have to fight to get even a 1% raise for years in a never ending quest for recognition which is non existent in this company. Most management is too busy worrying about what others have to say about the company instead of increasing the human capital, even when someone posts a bad review on Glassdoor or other such sites there had been cases people being threatened to be fired if they don't take their reviews down in an attempt to decrease the number of negative reviews. This explains the rating of Global Relay not falling through down even lower but staying at mediocre 2.5 which blends in with the rest of the companies in this range. Let's start with HR. Global Relay's HR is the most incompetent and limp you can find in the industry. Some hilarious situations were encountered when people being hired had no education or skills to do their job, and HR would not even checked their references. In fact some had their entire industry history faked and would make it in after a single interview, while others who had years of experience got a call from HR 9 months after applying because their resume got lost in a pile of papers. There have been tens of cases people leaving because HR would refuse to raise their salary even by 2%. Basically the silent company policy on salary increase is "if you need salary increase then just leave". There had been cases new hires just got told "there is very little work to be done so that's your compensation for low salary". Not bad for a "best managed company". If you somehow miraculously managed to get a salary increase (perhaps as a result of some event), then you will not get your 3% raise during the annual performance review because you have already received your bonus prior. This is a very clever way of not paying bonuses ever. You may also get promoted however promotions normally don't contribute to salary increases - just add more responsibilities. However even promotions come tough. Most of the management places their own people, who they know, in the management vertical so that everyone is "better controlled". More recently, because people have been talking amongst themselves of the recent layoffs, and about what is happening in the company, HR has implemented a squealing policy by which all team leads and random people expected to report to HR of anything going on in their team so they could quickly get rid of that person to be able to sustain corporate "image" and not loose their face. This and other events had caused people to quit, sending embedded links in the farewell emails to articles such as "People don't quit companies people quit bosses'. Pretty good for "best managed company".<br><br> In general people are just too afraid to voice their concerns, and even when they do in an "anonymous" HR surveys, those get right down on a manager's table, with employees name on the report, so that a particular manager knows who is complaining. Needless to say that no one in their right mind will be saying anything constructive. General outlook: The original "success" of the company came from a few banks being sued for non compliant behaviour, and that's where most of Global Relay accidental business came from because they were the only one in the market. The other fact is that even with all the empty sales promises, there were no new products released in 2015, so the company just cruised along with what they created prior. Their goal was to get into the Gartner Quadrant ( Gartner is a company that tracks corporate positioning and how well companies do and if they are on target or not ) which came to life few years ago, and now they are slipping because of Global Relay's inability to execute. Why is being recognized by Gartner is so important ? because this is how market evaluates companies for being relevant. If you are not relevant, you don't have the business, no matter how many awards you buy, you actually have to perform. To summarize: All the talented developers who could, left, all the capable management who could also left, there are no clear plans ahead, people are afraid of what is happening and culture shift had taken for the worst. The original company accidental success as a result of U.S banks under tougher regulations is no longer a competitive advantage, and with competition on the rise with big players entering the game with gross company mismanagement, you can see the dead end nearing. Short points: Grossly mismanaged company Absolutely worst untrained and limp HR Broken promises on product releases for years causing multiple teams of people to quit Backstabbing, irresponsible management, outright lying Demoralizing work, upper management has no idea what's next Low morale in the office, everyone is afraid after the recent layoffs .. New policies implemented so that team leads report to HR Low salaries with no opportunities to grow . Short synopsis: You would be an absolute fool to join Global Relay