Pros
Pay and benefits are at or above market levels generally Central location - new office with good facilities Started to make some long required difficult decisions One or two decent hires coming in to replace the chaff
Cons
Still too much dead wood floating around at senior levels New CEO is a good chap, but not sure if a white, middle-aged, public school educated, former underwriter is quite the answer we need to solve our myriad issues Too many parts of the underwriting business simply fail to make any money and should have been cut adrift long ago We don't invest in proper change initiatives that will improve performance long term, but instead sink millions into never-ending finance and reporting programmes that barely paper over the cracks (or indeed simply create new issues) There has been a historical reluctance to deal with poor performance at a mid to senior level, instead preferring to shift the offending parties into various roles around the company. The recent cost cutting exercise has made the usual errors seen in these scenarios - instead of tackling appalling abuses of personal expenses and poor budget management within teams, we've instead chosen to cut back on things like free fruit on the office floors, which is was something genuinely appreciated by most staff (but hey, we're still 'the place to work', right guys?) Can't see how we're going to meet our commitments to Japan over the next year or so, so expect its going to be a choppy ride for the foreseeable future