Pros
Great cultural diversity and creative work environment, some nice perks that can keep most employees happy for a while, until they realize they can probably get more somewhere else.
Cons
I was in an admin role during my time there, there weren’t a lot of opportunities for growth and promotions were few and far between (especially it seemed for female admins). Their annual employee review process seemed centered around guiding architects and designers, with no real consideration for other roles. There was a lot of constant monitoring of my hours which seemed unnecessary, they started requiring all admins only to start detailing what was being done every hour on timesheets. A lot of annoying office politics too, they had a senior admin staff member basically boss us around even though the person was not the direct supervisor we reported to. There were also newer staff hired for support roles who pretty much got to neglect their primary duties so they could explore “other options” while senior support staff had to pick up the slack. Gensler claimed their benefits were competitive with or exceeded those of similar companies but my paid time off always felt limited and had to include sick leave (even after 5 or more years). Some of the most condescending treatment I received, sadly, was from some of the female leaders who you would think would want to be role models, but again that was typically reserved for architects or designers. Lastly, they did not have a great initial game-plan for Covid, with conflicting communication from CEOs and office leaders. They also had, yet again, very little flexibility for working remote, especially for support staff, even though they are leaders in best workplace strategies/practices.
