Pros
Very little other than really nice offices (however consider this comes at a cost to your compensation). Occasional travel. A new company logo
Cons
"They were pretty open about the bad reviews here, most due to some early mistakes of buying out other companies" I noticed this comment on the interview section of GD and let me tell you that the member of staff that told you this is simply incorrect and is not giving you anywhere near the full story. Let me start by saying I have worked for this company for over 6 years and I'm not from one of the companies that ion has acquired. The negative comments on glass door although partially could be attributed to ions aggressive acquisition strategy, are really related to a much bigger problem with the organization and its management. I will focus on FRC as this is the area I work in, however the comments in general are relevant to all areas of the organization mainly because the issues at this company are all down to senior management. FRC was defined as a new business unit last year with a new management structure being implemented with the aim for the unit to act autonomously and manage its own budget/p&l. Management explained to staff that the mistakes of the past were behind us and that going forward people would be given real responsibility, rewarded if they performed well, reprimanded if they didn't and transparency would be given into the performance of the business unit. This was all a big lie. We are now approximately a year into this change and all that can be said is that a large number of people have been reprimanded and fired. There has been no transparency into performance except for a meeting held recently where we were told of the business units performance and that no one would be getting a pay rise or bonus. We missed target...sorry what was the target? Who set this? Why weren't we told or updated on progress? I'm not greedy and understand that sometime companies given poor performance can't always increase pay or pay discretionary bonuses, however to go a full year with no update to staff on performance and then just hit them with such a negative update is unacceptable. Where was the supposed improvement in transparency? Also consider that end of year compensation discussions are typically held at the end of the year, sure in past years it has sometime been done in February/march (every year it gets worse and they push it out). This year nothing was said, management just tried to ignore the topic (as I assume they knew it was bad). It was only when staff were so irate and put enough pressure on management did they bother to actually address the subject. It took until mid May to have this discussion, the content of the discussion I touched upon in the last paragraph. Anyway things are changing now and for the better (at least for the staff). The few staff that remain that have any talent or knowledge are starting to see the light and are leaving for new jobs (me being one of them). If you are a graduate considering working for ion you are being very naive in thinking that these comments are just a "few bad apples" or that "it's down to mistakes in the past". I appreciate you are straight out of college and likely desperately need a job but it's important you get this right. The last thing you want to do is start at a company, realize all of what I have just explained and then leave having to explain to the next company you interview at why you left after such a short period of time (and when it was glaringly obvious it was a bad choice for you in the first place)!
