This is a tricky one - I haven't been at the company long enough to have formed a solid opinion.
Elsevier is incredibly complex. The general consensus is that it takes at least a year to really onboard.
There is a lot of passion, an immense amount of ideas and a huge amount of change.
Perhaps the main problem is this difficulty to onboard - to understand the goals and challenges.
I think the documentation, the plethora of microsites, wikis, outdated work guidelines and conflicting information is probably the biggest problem for all employees.
I have found it necessary to 'blinker' myself to many aspects of the sheer volume of information thrown at me, simply to be able to perform in my role. I have to filter so much stuff out - the cognitive overload would be impossible to work with otherwise.
Fortunately, this is recognised amongst colleagues, but it would be great if this could be magically simplified - I have no idea how though! :)
This is a very old company which is modernising rapidly, but still suffers from some very outdated systems and data - and also one which is working toward changing a business model on quite a profound scale.
The new CEO has been amazing in trying to direct this very difficult change.
I guess one of the biggest cons with Elsevier, is the existing/old business model - it has been highly controversial in the past and still is to this day, but the company is taking that on board and trying to turn things around. This is going to take some time!
