Pros
It's better than being unemployed (and it feels like the Executive team and PE firm know this and it can sometimes seem like they are even exploiting it).
Cons
In my opinion, it feels like the executive team is chopping away at benefits as a way to increase the financial return to a PE firm that has invested in Community Brands. It's impossible to know if this is the case, but it often times feels like that's driving many of the decisions being made. Changes to compensation and bonus plans, health insurance policies, vacation time, and 401k matching, seem like an effort to take benefits out of the pockets of ground level employees and drop them into the bank accounts of private equity executives. The changes made to the benefits packages have not felt like they benefit the employees, but have felt as if they were designed to increase profit to the new investors. Again it's impossible to know for certain, but it has felt that way many times. And add on top of that the seemingly quarterly round of surprise layoffs, and it can be very difficult to be hopeful and excited about the future of the company. I can't speak directly on what this affect has on the product lines themselves, but it feels like Marketing and Sales teams have been reduced significantly since these mergers. If investment is being made into R&D, the results of that investment are not yet clear outside of that department. If these decisions are part of an effort to maximize financial returns to a PE firm, then the decisions make sense for that firm and for the executives who may beholden to such a firm. But the result of those decisions have felt like a rough hit for many employees. If you are a person considering joining the company, or a client considering purchasing one of the products, you may want to ask questions to your recruiter or vendor about what effect the need to drive returns to a PE firm has had on employees and the product.