Vantaggi
Ability to work from home. Work-life balance is excellent. Substantial vacation time. Good exit packages when layoffs occur. If you're complacent you can stay here for a long time.
Svantaggi
Yearly layoffs and they often occur around the holidays. They've been eliminating older employees for years now. If you're over 50 you're on the chopping block. Office culture in Canada is night and day compared to US. Folks in CA like their job and they're proud of the company. People in the US show up for a pay check and often wonder if they're part of the next round of layoffs. Office politics is brutal. Lots of large personalities here with no room for growth making pretend that this is corporate America. Several managers/Dir/AVP's are brutal to work for. Clearly they are "lifers" and not happy about it and feel the need to treat employees very poorly. Regime changes, SLF loves to bring in flunkies from other organizations such as Bank of Montreal or Lincoln Financial. They should try to minimize the potential impact and only bring on one employee from another firm, not the entire "click."