Struggling with transition
Pros
People are generally very pleasant and almost universally well-intentioned. As a company, their heart seems to be in the right place, with a commitment to business ethics and good corporate governance. There are some good benefits, and they are committed to the health and wellbeing of their employees. During the pandemic they adapted quickly, and went above and beyond in terms of protecting their employees. Their products are good, and their commitment to sustainability and a smarter, safer world is clearly evident. Their appears to be little micro-management although meetings can be long and arduous.
Cons
Career progression is very limited - the same faces, and those who shout loudest, seem to benefit from the limited opportunities that come up, in terms of both promotions and even industry publications. Personal development is weak - they limit their training to bespoke programmes that are of no value outside the company. That limits development beyond the scope of ones job role, inhibiting personal growth. Leadership can, at times, be very aloof. Critical thinking is somewhat stifled and some leaders are happy to misrepresent the ideas of others as their own in the pursuit of personal glory, which was never the case before. Fundamental attributions errors and confirmation bias mean the contributions of some excellent staff are undervalued and some less effective staff overvalued, which inadvertently rewards mediocrities. They talk a lot about their values, but at times they are 'aspirational' at best - senior figures tended to be far more visible to customers when things were going well than when there were issues, and they are slow to market with announcements over company-wide issues, which often leaves staff fighting fires without any support. Many staff have struggled with the pressure of this, with sparse communication filtering down from the top that could have alleviated that stress - instead of mucking in and helping, the answer seems to be headspace subscriptions! They are becoming very 'process-driven', which is fine as many of their processes were extremely flakey, but their still has to be tolerance built-in to those processes to retain authenticity. Communication channels are rather hierarchical - there's a distinct 'scalar' chain of command, which is unusual for a Swedish company. This is to a degree understandable, because with scalability comes increased burden on specific pressure points, but at the same time staff often feel in the dark, which breeds uncertainty. Staff attrition is at an all-time low, which perhaps justifies much of the above.
