Pros
I think the biggest demonstrations of a pro for this company is the fact I turned-down a 50% compensation jump to one of the top-5 tech companies to stay with FM Global. It was a hard decision, but a year later I don't regret it. In over 10 years now working at various positions through the organization, I've seen/heard both some fantastic stories and some terrible ones. The fantastic ones overwhelming outweigh the terrible though, and of course no workplace is fully-immune from some terrible experiences. All of these companies do hire regular people after all, and the average person can often kind of... well, suck. But of any workplace I've been, FM Global seems to have the lowest density of those 'people that suck.' The company attracts a lot of highly skilled and talented people, that often love their jobs and perform very well in them. I've met some of my best friends in this company, and the general consensus among most of the people I've met is that FM Global has one of the better corporate and workplace cultures out there. I have friends that came from and/or still work at some really, seriously toxic work environments (and I've been in two in my past), and they make FM Global look like heaven by comparison. It's not perfect here and has its own flaws, but there are many, many far worse places. I am very happy and grateful every day that I ended up here, and not at one of those other companies. Some of the key high-level pros: - Benefits are extremely competitive (full pension AND 6% match 401k). - Work/life balance is highly encouraged; I'm always strongly pushed to take vacation time, and am never expected to work beyond my 8 hours. - Work flexibility options are awesome; such a WFH schedule, can start your workday anytime, or 4x 10hr days and 3-day weekends every weekend, etc. - Frequent compensation studies to ensure competitive pay (but just at the 'market average'), and generally acceptable 2.5-5% raises each year. - The company makes a lot of effort to ensure fair treatment, equal opportunity, diversity/inclusion, etc. - Training, education, mentoring and personal growth opportunities have been endless in all of my positions; whatever I wanted, gets approved. - Since the '99 merger, the company has never laid-off any works. - The company is extremely secure financially; even during the worst parts of the market, widespread natural disasters, and COVID - I've never feared for the company's future or my job. The above pros, and particularly the security and stability, are what kept me here despite the very tempting offers to work elsewhere.
Cons
- Nearly impossible to get fired. Might be a good thing for some, but is generally a bad thing for the culture. Bad actors and poor performers often end-up staying in the company for longer than they should (if not indefinitely), and have the biggest negative effect on the overall culture. - Pay is generally just average. I mention the frequent compensation studies as a good thing, but generally the result is 'we found we pay right at the average for your position, and so we're happy with that.' A few instances they did find results that caused a position profile's salary range to be revised upwards (they never revise downwards), so I guess it can still be a good thing. - Advancement can be difficult. People stay at this company their entire lives; and so often that there is literally a gigantic section of the corporate parking lot dedicated to '25-year+' employees. And it's almost always full! On the one hand it's like "wow, this is great, people love to stay here"... on the other hand, movement can feel infrequent and limited. - A cause of the above, is that a large chunk of the company has been around a long time, and with that often comes resistance to change and very conservative thinking and policies. This was a big problem in my first 5 years, but in the most-recent 5 years they've made a targeted effort to address this and I think have made some major strides. The workforce is much younger, more innovative and encouraged to 'challenge the status quo' now. Still a slight con, but moving in the right direction. - Another negative cause of the above, is often people that have been with the company long-term naturally find themselves advantaged into management positions. But most people are not meant to be managers, or are good at managing employees. Actual skill and competency in managing people need to matter much more than tenure, for these positions. - Recently, there have been lots of widespread management and structural changes, that while done for seemingly good reasons will have questionable/unknown long-term effects on the workplace quality and success. Many people are discouraged/disgruntled by how much change has been made here, but time will tell how it ultimately plays out. - Lots of cultural resistance to the idea of 'full-time remote workers', though the company has historically supported limited remote work (1-2 days/week) for years now.