Executive Management much better, but lower and middle management still quite poor and punitive/bullying to subordinates
Pros
Executive management is significantly improving their business decision-making and communication regarding direction for company culture. Executive management listening to feedback of employees and beginning to take some action. Work-life balance at lower levels is possible if you do not care about career advancement. Very good culture of celebrating the product with monthly roaster events and daily coffee tastings. We really love and enjoy the product and service we provide. Inconsistent but outstanding Distinguished Speakers series brings high profile regional and national public figures for intimate 1-hour open discussions. Free premium coffee all day long.
Cons
Lower and middle management is very uneven in competence yet fiercely and destructively competitive, punitive-focused and the poorer of them blame their failures on their people and are permitted to end or stagnate careers of individual contributors who challenge them. This has led to a culture among those management levels that individual contributors are not competent, and they preferentially hire outside the company when promotions are available. This has also led to a culture among individual contributors to avoid risk-taking, keep your mouth shut, do as you are told, and success behavior to get ahead is to be the biggest martyr in terms of work-life balance. There is a lot of talk about improving the culture, but there has not been any real change. It is obvious when the situation is even moderately serious that the lower and middle management revert to their preferred behaviors of demanding ongoing heroic measures to recover from their bad decisions or inaction, defending themselves politicially and blaming/punishing subordinates.
