Pros
International environment. Good benefits, especially the Open Bar downstairs. Good facilities.
Cons
What made me give only 2 stars was the fact I had one of the worst team leaders I’ve ever had. Despite being very knowledgeable (due to years of experience in the company), my team leader had little of what can be considered as leadership. This is due to a number of reasons. FIRST. She was very strict in order to obtain what she wanted (the end justifies the means, they say – true - but it usually comes at the price of having more enemies and people feeling uncomfortable in your presence). The result, in fact, was that people would follow (unhappily) her orders, not for loyalty, but for fear of repercussions. And this was very clear, since the whole team (ambassador included) used to do the complete opposite, when the leader was off work or on holiday, starting from the use of the robot, which was causing more problems than solutions. SECOND. According to body language, you can understand a lot from the way a person moves, speaks and behaves. My team leader used to be friends with some members of the team. This meant being nicer and more patient to some, but not everyone. As such, there was a dis-balance in treatment. Back to school, we all hated teachers who had preferences in treatment for some students. As far as I could see, this also applied to the team. Now, humans tend to have preferences. It is normal. However, if you happen to be in charge of people, (and have preferences for some) this makes you an average leader/manager/teacher. THIRD. Little empathy. According to expert Simon Sinek, the main feature of great leaders nowadays is to be empathic. As far as I could see, my team leader had next-to-none of it (unless she had preferences, as explained in point two). She used to express only what ‘she’ wanted/felt, but hardly ever what the other person wanted/felt was taken into account. (and feedbacks were useless, as no real changes came afterwards). FOUR. She forced people to work during bank holidays, meaning only two people had the privilege (not 'the right' to stay home, while all the others had no choice but to come to work (doing the back-up as well> this means that during a bank holiday, if you weren’t lucky enough to be off, you used to work more than usual). Now, by the Czech law, you have to work during bank holidays, ‘only’ if it is related to public welfare. All the other cases are excluded. This means that, either my team leader was simply ignorant and close-minded, or if she knew it, she was deliberately breaking the law, showing no empathy for people (just for the business), as explained in point three. FIVE and final point. She is the team leader of a number of export planners EUR, but she admitted having never planned before, as she was coming from a different background. This is understandable. Not everyone can know everything, understandably. But, if you lead planners, you should know in detail what they are doing, how they are doing it, and why they are doing what they are doing. This was not the case. In fact, any time there were some numbers she might dislike, instead of seeing under the surface to find out why some numbers were not as expected, she would simply point the finger, being on edge, jumping and snapping. What made her an average leader here is that she might criticize the job done/planned, legitimately, but would not be able to teach to do better, as she could not do the planning herself. She was simply delegating others, to avoid the bother. Very demotivating attitude. It is a pity, though. Leadership is a nice skill, but it must be studied and implemented seriously. Not something to be improvised, as it happened on the present occasion. Otherwise, the result can only be negative, and the team will not follow you anytime they are given the chance (as explained in point one already).