Pros
- Pay and benefits are moderately better than market standard. - Most employees are friendly, worldly, congenial, talented, and passionate about what they do. - Many staff are from other countries or have traveled extensively -- a truly global workplace. - Back Bay location is great, and office is modern and well-appointed.
Cons
VHL is a young company that, for years, has enjoyed a level of success disproportionate to its small size. Recently, the CEO has eviscerated the company with round after round of seemingly arbitrary firings, layoffs, and role eliminations (including the president of the company). No explanation has been given other than "we're growing as a company." Which doesn't make sense, given our total # of employees is small and getting smaller by the day, while workload continues to increase. Most of these departures have not been backfilled -- responsibilities just keep getting reassigned to remaining staff, many of whom do not have the required knowledge, qualifications, or bandwidth to adequately fulfill those responsibilities. Quantitative and qualitative output have taken a nose dive as skilled and long-serving employees take their knowledge with them when they get kicked out the door -- and right over to our competitors. The resulting atmosphere is reminiscent of the final act of Titanic. There are still good, committed people here, but their proportion of the workforce has been overbalanced by a mixture of CEO-toadying sycophants and go-along-to-get-along types who are hoping to fly under the radar until retirement (or, at least, a decent severance package). This company used to be and still could be a great publisher and a wonderful place to work, but every day it seems less and less likely that we will survive this poorly managed transition into full-blown corporatehood.
