Pros
If you’re in the right roles / program you can quickly develop very translatable skill sets, and take them somewhere else for vastly better comp and work life balance.
Cons
The comp and benefits are below market value for the level of performance and time expected for you to work. Very few managers will actually respect work life balance because every group is permanently understaffed to limit G&A spend. Company performance has lagged for the past few years, with increased pressure to deliver to the street so that the all important stock value continues to rise. As an associate you only get access to stocks through a basic stock purchase plan / your 401K. The only employees benefiting truly from inflating the stock value are executives and folks that have 10+ years sunk into the company. Development is based on who you know, and if you pick the right roles at the right time to apply for. If you pick a “bad role” you can silo your career fast. Outside of the “Finance Development Program” analyst level employees experience slow progression and minimal pay increases. So an FDP can make as much as someone with 10 years of work experience in 1/3 the amount of time. Finally leadership of the company is in a terrible state. There’s a director level and up echo chamber of virtue signaling where executives will loudly repeat their love for their work making the world a better place. Reality is Ecolab marginally improves some of the worst polluters / contributors to climate change (Coke / oil and gas / nestle). What makes Ecolab money is selling a value prop where companies can save money on water use and QA costs by reducing bacterial infections. The cherry on top for the customer & Ecolab is they can virtue signal on socials to their hearts content without making meaningful changes to the way the do business. Beyond that you only really make bank as an executive, and there’s a dynamic where they feel the need to drive teams harder and with less empathy each year to eke out a few more cents of EPS.
