Pros
The people are lovely, such a warm, kind group of people to work with You can learn a lot, and there are chances to be really creative There are good opportunities. I did enjoy the first couple of years at Emerald and it has been good for building my career and experience. It's a great place to be for a couple of years - but it definitely has a shelf-life There is a will to do the right thing, be a good company to work for and treat employees well Flexible working - Emerald is very ahead on truly flexible working. You can work at Emerald and manage other responsibilities - small children, or caring for elderly parents, and that is very valuable and not something you will find in many places. Ambitious and forward thinking
Cons
Most of the time, Emerald treats people well, but when they don't, they really, really don't. When they don't, they have a massive impact of employee mental health. This is something I've seen happen multiple times over the last few years. It feels like every six months the C-suite pick a department or person, decide they are the problem and put them through immense amounts of stress and mental torture, all the while sending internal messages about how much they care about employee well-being. It feels like a strange form of gaslighting! There isn't really a strategic plan in place, or at least not one that makes any sense Low pay, and a lack of understanding that the pandemic has changed things. We can all still live in Yorkshire but go and work anywhere now for a lot more money. Weird politics go on, but this is mainly at the top leadership level. A general attitude that you should be grateful to work there. Stop being surprised at all the people leaving! Sometimes, because of a lack of experience and strategy, projects can turn into Kafkaesque nightmares. Massive amounts of self-aggrandizing "hero messaging" which really starts to feel dishonest after a while. Sometimes it's like we don't actually know how to be a publisher and I felt so embarrassed dealing with external parties when things went wrong. It's not good enough really.