Pros
The best parts of working at Copperleaf are getting paid your humble salary, the annual bonus, and the RRSP contribution. The flexible working hours are nice to have. Professionally colleagues are mostly kind and supportive. The company is financially stable despite the CEO's habit of xenophobic statements.
Cons
The Copperleaf experience differs drastically by team. This is clearly reflected in these reviews. Nonetheless, there's companywide separation between employees and management. Management enjoy an illusion of perfection from their ivory tower while the rest suffer in the dirt. The higher the level of management, the greater the disconnection from reality. People are unhappy, because working conditions make them unhappy. I have seen women crying in the office, yet the CEO has the audacity to ask for "positive" reviews on Glassdoor. Extended periods of stress and mental health leave are too common. HR is entirely unsympathetic and ineffective dealing with this. You are currently better off trying to heal in secrecy. Managers openly disrespect employees. I've overheard a project manager refer to a European female as "the diversity hire". While there's no salary transparency to employees, someone in management has spoken openly about looking up salaries (revealed to management during the annual review process) and then commented on employees' worth. Working conditions on many teams are insufferable, because management―incompetent and overconfident―embody the Peter Principle in what has turned into a Disneyland for the Dunning-Kruger effect. The result is a climate of bullying and gaslighting; a culture of fear, and retribution against whistleblowers. Character assassination is common against dissenters, a tactic used to alienate and to discredit. Here too HR fails us, because there is no grievance procedure in place for defending against attacks from management. Additionally HR is prone to gaslighting and exacerbating problems. This is why many suffer in silence, helpless, isolated from their peers. You never know who's going to whisper in the wrong ear. Anything goes behind closed doors and in the absence of witnesses. No amount of free coffee and Coke can compensate for this. Not knowing about the suffering and abuse around you isn't proof that it doesn't exist. Just be glad that you're not yet on the receiving end. Remember, everyone believes they're treated fairly until they find out that they're not. To add insult to injury, employees are strongarmed into making ridiculous propaganda videos to promote the farce that is Copperleaf's culture. A fair and just culture would be inclusive, accommodating anyone and everyone, affording them equal opportunity to succeed, but, as that other review (written by someone in management) says quite clearly, Copperleaf is only for some. The only thing that could turn this place around is if employees exercised their legal right to organize. A union can fix this mess, which is why they're on the upsurge in Silicon Valley. It would give salary transparency and more competitive wages (increases of up to 30%), establish grievance procedures, eradicate nepotism and cronyism, be inclusive, and shift the power from a corrupt, uncaring management to the workforce. Union dues are also tax deductible!
