Reactionary, break/fix culture.
Issues are often escalated to mgmt, few people seem to speak to each other directly about them, and management did not discourage this practice.
Too many tools/inefficient use of IT incident management and project management tools.
Too little accessible documentation on past projects and/or staff roles and responsibilities.
Chronic re-orgs on both the business and IT sides of the house that made people worry about job security.
People clearly wanted improvements, but the risk taking that drives innovation seemed discouraged because it was too time consuming.
"Interim" employees and contractors were in leadership roles that need long term, stable direction from a permanent, vested employee.
Dissatisfied and repeatedly disappointed users, it was hard to earn their trust.
Lack of transparency on how IT projects are prioritized, and no way of knowing what's all in the works.
Unwritten policy that if an employee gives less than the required notice for their position they are not eligible to work at the company again and written policy the employee only gets partial PTO payout. For most IT roles this is 4 weeks notice.
Takes 5+ minutes to navigate the HR phone tree for an HR question.
HR benefits enrollment system is cumbersome.
Long-standing employee salaries were not competitive with new hire salaries or market standards.
Immediate mgmt was usually too busy to respond to concerns and questions, which contributed to the escalation cycle.
Six months is too long for a probationary period, particularly depending on when the employee receives their annual review. Realistically this should be 90 days or less.
