Pros
The people are generally great. There is a strong commitment to work/life balance. I believe that leaders genuinely cares about their employees.
Cons
Decision making is concentrated at the VP and EVP level. Recommendations are routinely ignored or overruled by successive levels of leadership, meaning that even directors frequently do not have visibility into how or why strategic decisions are made. Managers do not have authority to hire or dismiss their own team members and mostly do not control their own budgets. Directors do not control their own budgets. New positions - including contracts - must be approved at the EVP or CEO level. Senior leaders are not held accountable for major strategic and operational errors. The company prioritizes promoting from within, which has led to a highly insular group within all levels of leadership, where dissenting voices are frequently punished or ignored. There is no technical development or leadership stream except for engineers, meaning that domain specialists (IT, finance, operations, marketing, etc.) are mostly not represented at senior levels and are also excluded even from strategic discussions, let alone strategic decision making. Critical decisions have mostly been made by the time even directors and managers are engaged, with unexpected consequences or complexities frequently coming to light only once money has been spent and contracts signed. The stable income provided by the Alberta utility market design and lack of meaningful competition means that innovation and efficiency are not needed and frequently do not result in increased revenue, and are therefore not valued. This leads to wasteful decisions, made without any real accounting of ROI, to appease various internal stakeholders who are frequently at odds with one another.
