Pros
I'm writing this review in hopes of providing insight to prospective employees from a non-disgruntled OR kool-aid drinking perspective. I've been here for almost 3 years and have seen the company change from a small 15 person office in a crappy basement office in Irving to a wannabe San Francisco start up "about to hit IPO-levels" company operating out of pretty awesome offices in downtown Dallas. This radical change I've been a part of means I have seen good co-workers come and go. It means I have seen both great and not-so-great executives come and go. It means I have seen our marketing efforts go from a depressing 1990s styled website to a totally re-branded modern website with a Shark Tank shark being a keynote speaker at our conference. All of these changes have come at a cost but some have also helped the company and its employees as well. At the end of the day people are only reading this because they care about what the employee cares. So let's get to it: - Great office in downtown Dallas, TX. Other offices throughout the country are also above average in standards. - Pretty thorough training initiatives for most employees (however this can be a hinderance when a new employee is needed quickly but can't do any real work until they complete a 2 month bootcamp). - Solid experience for recent grads, especially in: development, sales, support which all tend to hire young rather than experienced talent. - Prospects for ROI do exist, though legitimate raises/promotions (none of this superficial "senior" title bump for a few $k more) are about as mythical as a healthy Dallas Cowboys roster. - The rigorous recruiting standards in HR (really they are Lanyon's parent company Vista's standards) mean that you will be working with pretty bright people. - The healthy departments in the company seem to be pretty solid. HR and IT seem to score the highest in employee satisfaction. The recruiting team has tons of work to do but are almost always universally enthusiastic. People over in development are used to putting out fires but due to new processes put in place everything is manageable and the team and management in this department are trust-worthy and efficient. These groups also seem to reward their employees quite a bit (lots of recruiters have been promoted to other positions in other departments). - Awesome work/life balance. Ability to work from home fairly easily if justified (kid is sick, cable guy coming to install something, stayed up too late the previous night due to a Ricky Martin concert). - Execs and managers do a pretty good job to make sure employees get most of their bonuses paid out to them. Could be better if they were paid out quarterly though like other software companies in the area.
Cons
- The benefits are not good. That's all there is to it. Lanyon is simply not competing with rival software companies when it comes to benefits. The 401k is weak, the PTO policy is nothing special. But what is really annoying employees is the health insurance. The new insurance comes with a super hefty and high deductible and the coverage isn't all that great. Most single or young newly grads wont care much about this. When the CEO is asked about this he says it is a restriction put in place by the parent company (for buying power). That might be the case but its disheartening to see the CEO effectively say "sorry, I can't do anything about it." - Certain departments appear to be unhealthy. If you are in Sales, Finance, or Support (this includes their sub-departments such as Legal/Renewals/Sales Ops) you are going to be worked hard, paid little, and quite possibly not enjoy the management situation there. The attrition rates in these three departments are somewhat astonishing. We all know sales in general has high turnover rates due to its high stress/high reward nature. However, many in the sales department apparently gloat and talk about job searching while in the office. Sales is composed of non-experienced newly grads who are forced to sell pretty complicated and non-sexy corporate software. It's very difficult. Finance has apparently had to operate with help from contractors since they've lost employees in important position. Support once had 16 employees supporting a particular product, a month or so ago they were down to 2... - The Oz Principle is a corporate attempt to apply "science" to the "art" that is company culture. It espouses the need for employees to rise and operate above the line (translation: do more work for same pay). The mandatory training felt condescending and I was having PTSD flash-backs to elementary school when Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No" campaign was teaching kids how to be proper, well-behaved kids. I don't even want to know how much money Lanyon spent on getting trained and proper licensing to use the Oz Principle because right out of training most of the employees were mocking it. - Promotions/Raises/Pay. This is by far the thing that is running top talent out of this company. I'll start with pay. Vista's policy of hiring young people means they get to save money by not having top-heavy salaried employees around. Most entry-level positions are in the $30k's. More middle/senior level positions are also below market value. Vista & management justify these low rates by promising opportunities for rapid career advancement Guess what, unless you finish in the top 10% of a stack ranking (also, how corporate 90s is that?) you're not getting promoted or a raise above 2-3%. Now, this isn't bad relative to the rest of the corporate world, but it suddenly becomes annoying to employees when they deal with lower pay in hopes of getting that unicorn promotion.