Pros
They handled COVID very well. Full benefits from day one. Most of the people are very friendly. Great work life balance. Health benefits are decent, lowish personal deductible, but expensive. They also offer profit sharing when possible. Family owned so the owner and CEO know everyone by name which is nice change of pace from normal corporate world. Pay is pretty good.
Cons
Let's be real, this is a dying industry, and the company is constantly going through restructures. They are currently bringing in people from another company and pushing actual Smead employees aside. A lot of the employees have been with the company for 15-20+ years which sounds great, but a lot of them are incredibly resistant to change. There is a reason this change is needed, and the amount of push back is insane. Also, the seniority complex can cause an interesting work environment. The majority of everything at Smead is outdated, from software to the orange couch in the "bathroom lounge." Some of the culture is stuck in the 90's as well. Business attire, you can wear jeans on Friday ONLY if you buy a pass. You can only enter certain doors even though visitors are minimal. The worst part is the National Account Managers are treated like God/Goddesses that can do no wrong. Some of them are borderline abusive. When you bring it up to upper management they just shrug their shoulders and day "that's just who they are."