Avantages
The current CEO is a high energy, veritable factory of bold ideas. Through product and market space changes, and through acquisitions he seems to be making some headway in moving the company from the brink of closing to profitability. Pay and benefits are average; long and short term disability are provided as part of your package, but there is no paid sick leave and no 401k matching. Through the lean times the company has maintained a bonus program, which has made up for years of no raises. The hours vary with the project on which you're working. 8-9 hour days can be the norm, but much longer hours are expected depending on the situation. The company 'culture' is not one of "us verses them", but rather there is genuine free access to discuss issues with management.
Inconvénients
Twenty consecutive quarters of bleeding red ink all over the balance sheet has resulted in years of perpetual layoffs, no raises and slashed benefits. The new CEO has made great strides in moving the company from huge quarterly losses to small quarterly losses, but has yet to deliver a quarter in the black. The company seems poised to close the Richardson office (Enfora); or at least all the same things that happened to the Calgary office before it was closed are being done to the Richardson office. The company uses Jack Welch's method of motivation through fear, rather than motivation through reward. Jack laid off (and replaced) a full 10% of his upper management every year, in hopes of motivating the other 90% to work harder/smarter. At Novatel the upper management lays off a much smaller percentage of non-upper management each year in hopes of motivating those that remain. BTW: those layoffs are in addition to the ones caused by loosing money.