Long time employee's views - Anonymous employee CoBank Employee Review

Woefully understaffed back office functions result in long hours and rely heavily on the dedicated work ethic of many. Headcount is obsessively controlled - trying to get additional staffing is like getting a bill through Congress. But contractors are hired at the drop of a hat. Very silo'd organization structure with a significant lack of accountability - when something goes wrong, fingers start pointing all over the place. Major projects are initiated without proper prioritization or resources, driven by arbitrary deadlines, which ultimately results in a poor quality end product covered up by cumbersome manual processes and workarounds that eventually fail. Incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to advance from supervisory to management role, or from mid-level management to anything above. Senior management positions are almost always hired from outside the company, not within. Excessive reliance on expensive external consultants while ignoring knowledgeable, intelligent employees.