There is poor recognition of good performance. This is particularly the case for theose on the graduate scheme where you see no promotion and minimal salary increases for three years, no matter how well you perform and how good this performance is relative to your peers. Beyond this time horizon, many people seem to stagnate into their positions and find it difficult to make headway.
Many people have been employed by the company for a long long time and have never worked anywhere else. This can make it quite claustrophobic and inward looking place to work. It also means that as a newcomer, it can be difficult to make headway. However, I do think that this is less of a problem than it used to be.
Benefits, although relatively good, are being cut back on. The best example of this is the scaling back of the compressed working week arrangement by which you were allowed every other Friday off in return for working longer hours during the preceeding nine days. There is no health insurance provision in the UK (although you get discounts on private health insurance) or dental insurance (although this is subsidised in some locations - this disparity is somewhat unfair). Salaries are below the market rate in teh areas that I am familiar with (Finance, Subsurface) and the benefits do not compensate adequately for this. Holiday allowance is pretty much on a par with other companies in the UK.
The company is slow to move, and often misses out on opportunities because of this. Proposed activities are analysed to death and are then subjected to round of approval after round of approval. There have been reorganisations to try and combat this, the effects seem to be slow in coming but I do think that things are improving. This makes it a frustrating place to work in many ways.
Increasingly, work has involved checking data, producing reports, reconciling sets of information, making presentations, putting numbers into spreadsheets. This is very very dull, but is part of the redefiniton of roles and reorganisation of the company referred to above.
