Pros
- Good benefits - Pretty campus - Opportunity for travel - Opportunity for growth
Cons
Company culture and employee satisfaction have declined a lot in the last 3 years. Senior management continues to recruit middle managers externally who have no understanding of what Live Oak does. This erodes the backbone of the business and is crushing morale. Management claims to have your back, but when the going gets tough, they are nowhere to be found. When I started at the company the CEO always discussed the three legged stool - Employees, Customers, Investors. He said the focus was always on the employees first which helped to support the other two legs. Notably, when the new president took over we stopped having that discussion, but we did talk a lot about the stock price and the investors. Can be expected from a Goldman guy. Management is averse to merit based pay raises for high performers. The consistent turnover in middle management means you're likely to not have the same manager for a full year - so performance evaluations are not consistent or helpful. At the same time, the company seems very willing to pay a high price for outside hires that have minimal track record, and mediocre performance. They'll spend 30-40% more on a new hire and a year to train them rather than compensate existing employees with proven success. To a certain extent, rapid growth is likely to do this to a lot of companies. Live Oak will continue to lose good employees until fix their management issues.
