Pros
Benefits package is still relatively good - defined benefit pension scheme is still competitive, share schemes are worth participating in, and the company car scheme is good once you are senior enough to benefit from it. In most UK locations you get a free lunch and subsidised or free gym membership. The people who work here are generally bright and interesting to work with, although this does not necessarily mean that they are good at running a business - there is a tendency to overcomplicate things. However, it does mean that the work tends to be intellectually stimulating (although not always - see below!). Again, though, I think that increasingly this is no longer the case - I don't think that BP necessarily attracts the best anymore. There is potential to move across the business and locations, although getting this realised can be difficult. More often that not, it is a case of which job is available at the time that you are looking, and there is an increasing emphasis on gaining depth in an area rather than broadening your experience. This means that increasingly it can be difficult to get out of an area once you have worked there for a while.
Cons
There is poor recognition of good performance. This is particularly the case for theose on the graduate scheme where you see no promotion and minimal salary increases for three years, no matter how well you perform and how good this performance is relative to your peers. Beyond this time horizon, many people seem to stagnate into their positions and find it difficult to make headway. Many people have been employed by the company for a long long time and have never worked anywhere else. This can make it quite claustrophobic and inward looking place to work. It also means that as a newcomer, it can be difficult to make headway. However, I do think that this is less of a problem than it used to be. Benefits, although relatively good, are being cut back on. The best example of this is the scaling back of the compressed working week arrangement by which you were allowed every other Friday off in return for working longer hours during the preceeding nine days. There is no health insurance provision in the UK (although you get discounts on private health insurance) or dental insurance (although this is subsidised in some locations - this disparity is somewhat unfair). Salaries are below the market rate in teh areas that I am familiar with (Finance, Subsurface) and the benefits do not compensate adequately for this. Holiday allowance is pretty much on a par with other companies in the UK. The company is slow to move, and often misses out on opportunities because of this. Proposed activities are analysed to death and are then subjected to round of approval after round of approval. There have been reorganisations to try and combat this, the effects seem to be slow in coming but I do think that things are improving. This makes it a frustrating place to work in many ways. Increasingly, work has involved checking data, producing reports, reconciling sets of information, making presentations, putting numbers into spreadsheets. This is very very dull, but is part of the redefiniton of roles and reorganisation of the company referred to above.