Now Seaboard Special Crops - Legal Department PS International Employee Review

Pros-The 401K program along with the Health benefits are really nice. Aside from a few outliers, the company is very cohesive. People go on weekend trips together, have cook outs together and get drinks after work, this plays right back to the company being formed as a family company with annual company trips once commonplace. Last year the company went on a retreat to the Homestead for the retirement of the founders, which was a great time, expenses paid for by PSI. Low turnover for the productive traders, just four of the 30+ have left the company in the past three years. Many cultures work here creating a diverse workplace. Great opportunity for foreigners who are interested in the US workplace, many people have moved here from their native country to work at PSI. Well loaded Visa gift cards are given as quarterly bonuses to all staff, as long as numbers are met. Influx of Seaboard in the past 3 years has opened opportunity to work in many more places around the world versus the couple of PSI offices, Argentina and South Africa for example have large Seaboard presences. Overall company spirit is high, one can tell this particularly by how much time outside of work co-workers spend with each other at PSI sponsored events, for example 50 or so employees went to a Durham Bulls game last month and 25 or so employees ran in the Color Me Rad race. PSI does bday cakes in office each month for monthly bdays, along with bday PTO. Lastly fresh fruit is brought into the office every Wednesday and PSI subsidizes a weekly delivered local veggie box for employees who wish to get one.

Cons- A few people have become more and more disrespectful to company polices, such as attendance and showing up at a respectable time, the office is almost half empty at 8am typically. This abuse of policies hasn't had the quickest response from management as it could have, but it is showing progress with recent movements in personnel. Part of this could be from the fact the people who created the company retired last year, so policies seem to have become more relaxed. I believe part of the reason we did not receive a quarterly bonus 2Q14 for the first time in years is that some people were overly concerned with finding problems versus solutions for a short time, but we seem on track to exceed numbers this quarter, as it’s based on exceeding numbers. Those few people seemed overly negative in attitude, such as not having a positive outlook of a company with incredible growth and numbers in the past several years (500% revenue/profit growth in 10 years). There’s somewhat high turnover in logistics; such that 6 of about 25 have left in the past two years. There's some nepotism for interns, as a majority of them are related to staff, nepotism for staff is quite less with just 3 of 80 employees having older ties to the founders. Albeit any former family business is going to have some apparent nepotism in its history otherwise it wouldn't have been a family business. Lastly it appears there’s some timidity around with people expressing concerns behind the scenes versus properly, to that I say ‘be the change you want to see in your workplace,’ the trading world is not a place for the timid.

Dynamic, diverse staff from all over the world, office located in beautiful Chapel Hill, generous vacation and bonus program, opportunities for growth and job development, fun and laid back company culture. The company has a casual, laid-back vibe, similar to what I’ve heard about working for Southwest Airlines. Management has recently put a lot of thought into what would make it a better place to work, even going so far as to have a company culture committee that has passed measures like giving employees their birthday off, having social events, free Rosetta Stone access, etc. Because it was a family-run business initially, it still has a feel of a place where people care about each other, even since it has been purchased by a Fortune 500 company. The company has also recently made efforts to give its trade operations staff a true career path, which has been a great thing for employees. Other departments are considering following suit. I have enjoyed my time with the company and am optimistic about the future of the company.

If you’re not used to working in a fast-paced, deadline-oriented environment, it’s probably not the right fit. The job can be stressful at times and at times requires working extra hours.