Pros
There are a lot of good people and interesting clients at VML. The company provides solid parental leave benefits (12 weeks), lots of holidays off, and flexibility to not burn vacation days for sickness and bereavement. I have learned a lot at VML and have tried to advance my career. But that takes a lot of luck (see cons) to get anywhere with.
Kontras
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the company has been able to function fully remotely and things went very smoothly. 2020 was a record-setting year for profits. In 2022, leadership started gently pushing everyone to work from the office at least 3 days per week. Despite many people changing their lives around remote work. In 2023 it is mandatory to come in 3 days per week. For parents and people with complex life situations, the work-from-home policy is harmful and makes things challenging for parents who have difficult drop-off and pickup times for children. Further, most of us work on teams with few if anyone in the same building or even the same city. It is absolutely pointless to come into an office to still only be able to collaborate with co-workers via MS Teams. It wastes time, gas, and wear and tear on vehicles. Pay has fallen very far behind the industry standards. It hasn't even kept up with inflation for years. There used to be large profit-sharing bonuses back before WPP purchased VML. Now there are just $200 gift cards are Christmas followed by a company-wide "pat yourself on the back for a good year". One co-worker of mine hasn't seen a pay raise in 7 years. Promotions are half impossible to get. They are talked about and if you are of the right persuasion it seems like the company is going out of their way to have very public promotions of a select few. But at ground level you almost never see any. Even after working towards it for years and even years after being promised a promotion they fail to materialize. There is no clear path to get promoted. Promotions are at the whim of your boss and the bosses above them. AND you have to be on the right client that is long-term on the right project that is long-term to even be qualified for one in most cases. Technology experts are second-class citizens at a company that loves to talk about their people and their creative work. But accolades for technology teams are almost completely non-existent. Even when awards are won for technology work.