Pros
The job can teach you many important skills. It doesn't matter what department you work in. You can move around the company and find the department that best suits your skillset.
Cons
Management, many of the upper management to be exact, promotes through friendship and nepotism. The company in general is ethical about safety, but there are hidden departments that are operating unethically. While some departments ensure the people hired are qualified, 60% of the company hires based on personal opinion & relationships, & the closer you are related or connected to someone who is already in the company, the likelier you are at being hired and promoted. If you are self sufficient, then you are un-noticed. If you do something bad, then you are noticed. If you toot your own horn, then you will get noticed. If you go above and beyond, then don't expect a fast progression. National Grid operates on favoritism, nepotism, and years of service. If you count the amount of people whose sons and daughters work for friends, it is very high. Because of these promotions they are the favorites. Promotions are calibrated by this is the pot & favorites, relatives, years of service, hard work maybe. If you don't fall in here, then expect to get a 1% raise every year while the max is 3.1% which the company won't share with anyone because if they can get you to work for cheap to expand their budget, they will and it hurts those who aren't related to anyone. Once they know you are about to go crazy, then they promise you the promotion next year which may or may not happen. Bonuses are also determined by what they feel you deserve and not true benchmarking, which should be determined by how many projects produced, the outcome of the project, and the money saved from the project. The performer with the best results will get the highest bonus and should be tiered down by project performance, but since everything is based on a person to person level upper management puts a percentage of your bonus on whatever they feel like giving you so they can make room for promotions and other people's raises.
