Pros
Appriss has a great mission: Keeping communities safe and informed. Many of the employees at Appriss stay because the mission gives them purpose. The medical benefits are pretty great in comparison to other companies, and the on-site clinic is a great benefit. When I joined Appriss, I was overjoyed and felt like I was so lucky to be part of this organization. It seemed to cross off every item that I was looking for in an employer. Mission I can get behind? Check Great benefits? Check Flexibility? Check Culture? Check Career Advancement? Seems plausible! Then you get there, and quickly you realize that those are all just words on a website designed to entice you to join the company. I'm sure a couple of years ago, all those words were (maybe...) true and that the leadership cared about its employees, however greed & ambition has taken the focus away from both the mission & its employees. Many employees now are left with a memory of what a great place Appriss once was to work for, only to hope it will make a miraculous come back before they move on to better pastures. I'll walk through how most of the "positives" you'll hear about in the recruitment process are really just smoke & mirrors in the cons section.
Cons
ROWE: Instead of unlimited vacation & total flexibility, you should look at this as no vacation. You will be on the clock, no matter what. If the workload requires it, you could be asked to work any number of hours, any time of day - with no care to how it affects your "work/life balance" - if the business desires that you work the hours of 3, then you'll be held to that performance standard. If at the end of the day your performance is unsatisfactory, or you can not meet the demands of more than one (or two) full time jobs - you will be fired. Or you can leave, but don't expect a vacation payout for any unused time (because you will surely take less than the average 10-15 days per year, if you take any at all) - there is none. You'll hear about how as a company they drive certain behaviors - from integrity, accountability, respect & excellence. I experienced the opposite in my time there. Most notably, respect. It was not uncommon to hear HR (of all departments!!) gossiping about employees in hallways and sharing confidential information as if it was the latest water-cooler talk without any regard to their surroundings. It sends a strong message to employees to hear those conversations footsteps away from the reception desk & Cafe where there is lots of foot traffic. The website mentions things like impromptu putt-putt in hallways, inflatable giraffes in marketing, decorating your office like a bat cave. Where? People come in, don't talk to each other unless forced, then leave. Sure, we have an occasional lunch or food truck day - but other than that its pretty bleak. Career advancement - be prepared to get thrown around a lot. It's not uncommon to be hired in under one job, only to haphazardly be moved to another division or role altogether left to figure it out on the fly. Leadership makes decisions without thinking through the consequences and hoops its employees have to jump through to make it happen. To some that may look like career advancement, to others perhaps the direction they throw you into isn't where you want your career to go in. It wont matter, you have no say. In other companies you'd have to apply for those positions and interview - and have a chance to say "No" if it didn't seem like the right fit for you, here they'll just put your name in that role on a sheet of paper during one of their yearly company-wide reorganizations and tell you a few days before. If you don't do well in chaos, you wont like it here.
