When I began at ZirMed, I was shown that revenue had gone up every year, staff size had nearly doubled every year for the past few years, they were building a new facility, etc. I told my family that it's either a company about to boom, or it's a house of cards about to come tumbling down. I wasn't sure which, until they didn't get a contract in early 2010 they were counting on. There was a series of cost cuts, hiring freezes, tapping employees to contribute to parking, reduction in benefits, etc. We had executive update meetings in which it was revealed that profits were actually down from previous years and quarters. Then the layoffs began. Just one or two, then a handful more, then a few more, and a few more. By the end of the 2010 summer, I estimate around 30-40 people (out of 350 or so) had been laid off. All told it was a shift in skills needed, not a need to reduce staff. I still don't think any of that staff was replaced by new staff with the "needed skills".
I'm not saying ZirMed is a terrible place to work. It has a good atmosphere, and nice co-workers. But I don't see how any argument could be made that is in the midst of growth. They have had ups and downs over the years, including bankruptcy, not meeting payroll, and employees choosing to work for free until the company could afford to pay them again. A lot of the people there are really, really smart and talented (Larry Briggs, Betty Gomez, Philip Park, to name a few). Many of the executives are very good at their jobs (Chris Schremser, Jerry Merritt, and Jim Lacy, for example). But there are a lot of employees, including some executives, that have been there for a long time and helped build the company from a staff of 10 or 20, but simply don't have what it takes to help bring a company from small office to a corporate enterprise, yet are retained (I won't name names because most of them are honestly very nice, intelligent, talented people, just not well-suited to their current roles).
Something else to be aware of ... there are a whole lot of people that are related to each other in that place. Jerry Merritt is CEO, and his wife, Sandy, was hired as President of one branch of the company. Chris Schremser, the CTO, was hired by his father, Larry, head of recruiting. Sales directors' kids work there. The head of HR has at least two kids that have worked there. The CIO, Doug Fielding, has a brother, Dave, who was brought in to a high position in sales. I don't know for sure that there is any nepotism, but I sat down once and went through the org chart, and about 15%-20% of the staff were related to someone else that worked there.