Office Could Use a Facelift (in more ways than one)
Pros
Friendly atmosphere where employees have extremely impressive tenures (many have worked at Knoll for decades!). Some old school traditions are really nice (i.e. the company offers each employee a 20+lb turkey for Thanksgiving)
Cons
For an office & design company that is internationally recognized for its innovative concepts and sleek office design, the headquarters (located in the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania) is depressing. Well, one of the buildings is, with outdated cubicles and dark/dingy carpet and terrible lighting. The other building on the campus has won awards for its design. Seems odd and unfair to me to have one building, where the finance, accounting, customer relations, IT, HR, and marketing reside, be so grossly underwhelming and have another building on site, just a short 2 minute walk away, be sparkling new and impressive. There has been a recent cultural shift where several executive-level positions have been filled by external individuals who have completely disregarded the existing culture and are hell-bent on force feeding change, for better or worse. None of these executives are respected by the masses, but the CEO, who works out of the NYC branch, sees and hears only what they tell him, so he is absolutely clueless about how awful the working conditions have become. If you do not agree with one of the execs, you can expect your work life to be negatively impacted. Other mid-level management (directors) have taken a page from the execs book and you will see more of the same there. Lots of people brought from outside of the company, enforcing change whether it's good for the company or not.
