Smaller companies are a bit different than big corporations, too, though. Usually, it's just one (or a small group) of individuals running the company, so it's not some "faceless entity" with no morals and only working towards the goal of profit. Also, employees and employer generally know each other personally and have some kind of relationship that allows for at least some loyalty from both sides.
Big companies (public or private) have evolved beyond that and are more of a system than a person.
Smaller companies treat employees different, to an extent. Because in the end, regardless of company size, the owners expect a return of their investment. In case of owner-managed companies even more so.
To everyone their poison so, I guess. I learned that I am a large company guy, by a nature and nurture. Other people I know are the complete oppossite. One thing I learned so, no employee ever is safe. Not even lifetime employed state / public servants.
Small companies tend to have stronger empathetic bonds between people. Larger companies are much more prone to treating people like cogs to be replaced when worn out. More than that, larger companies might be able to shuffle problematic employees around rather than having to outright fire them.
It's a double edged blade to be sure- I've heard horror stories of bad small businesses as well- but my experience at both leaves me with a very strong preference for working for small companies.
The other thing with small companies is that the hierarchy is much flatter and people tend to be closer so there's the worry of spoiling the working relationship.
I've always enjoyed working at small companies. I've worked at larger companies which have the "level" concept of employees, it's kindda funny to me now :)
In my experience at smaller companies you get treated better, you are a more significant factor to the overall success of the company and there is very little corporate crap which often has silly requirements that get justified by a mystical word of being "professional", which often actually seems to achieve the opposite of treating adults as bunch of kids that need to be managed and controlled :)
Though I know it also can go very bad for people in small companies that have mini dictators in charge.
My first job after my training was at a really small company, about 10 employees plus the CEO/owner. And he was just like that CFO, too. The size of the company does not necessarily make a difference.
Still, having done my training at a slightly Dilbert-esque multinational corporation, I made a point of working for small-ish companies since.
Of course, small-ish companies bring their own share of problems, but all in all, I prefer that smaller companies tend to be less bureaucratic.
And I like the personal touch - at one company (~15 people), the CEO/co-owner walked up to each employee every morning and greeted them, shaking their hand. He was in some aspects a fairly difficult boss, but that little gesture made up for most of the difficulty.
The problem with a company treating employees like they were arbitrarily replaceable is that employees will treat the company the same way. If a company wants employees to identify with the company, to want to work at that specific company, it has to do better than that.
These things are consistent with my experience at a small company. I'd also add that it's much harder to keep things from becoming personal than it is at a large company.
A big corporation is usually seen as an inanimate monolith that you can't "blame". It's not a person and it has no morals. Just like a soldier's morality is mostly obscured by the "morality" of the whole army. But in small companies you can "see" the people behind them. You can suddenly directly assign blame for what they do. It's no longer a giant doing what giants do, it's no longer a blame split between 10.000 anonymous employees, it's a handful of people being scummy.
It's easier to assign blame and judge morals the smaller the group is, all the way down to an individual. You can put a face to the crime.
I have, I went from a baby bell to a small company. I've also worked at a mix of small and large companies.
Large companies do have company politics, some more than others, but so do small companies. At small companies, the politics tends to be out in the open. Also, you know who is sleeping with who. I'd call this a wash.
Large companies tend to have policies and procedures, so you can get things done, it's just sometimes arduous. Small companies, you can just go ahead and do stuff. But sometimes, if you hit on a sore spot or annoy a higher-up, you get arbitrarily stopped. Things do move faster at a smaller company, unless it's something they've experienced pain over in the recent past. Then, they just don't happen. I personally would give large companies a small edge here, but it's possible that a less dysfunctional small company would be better. I just think they're rate.
Big companies have real HR departments. Yes, HR exists to shield the company from its employees, but that means legally-vetted procedures. Small companies HR is hit and miss, and sometimes obvious transgressions don't get punished, but swept under the rug. Sometimes weird bad things happen and HR doesn't blink, sometimes weird good things happen, and HR doesn't blink. But weird HR related things happen more at small companies. You've got to be aware of that, otherwise, you'll ask out the RMA manager who is secretly sleeping with the Director of Something, and get in trouble.
To my mind, big and small companies are pretty equally horrible. In big companies, you suspect that upper management is a pack of insane criminals profiting via corruption. In a small company, you know for certain that upper management is a pack of insane criminals.
small companies have internal politics as well. It's not like working with people disappears. I've worked at both big and small companies, I don't really have a preference but in a big company, you can move around and keep all the good stuff if it gets a little hot under the collar. With a small company lots of times you have to leave to get a new manager or role or move up or just get a change of pace.
The continuity of a big co. can be very helpful from a salary perspective.
The point is that smaller companies are less full of _people_. Less bureaucracy, less institutional inertia and more relative influence of each individual.
In my experience, it's typically the smaller the company the more loyal they are to good employees.
Big companies with plenty of institutional inertia have zero loyalty and would replace their entire workforce with chatgpt of given the opportunity.
I'd phrase it this way: at a smaller company, you are much more likely to be treated as a human, by a human, versus being treated as a unit by a system at a bigger company.
In a small company, you don't get the protection of the bureaucracy either. You're likely to know the CEO, but that means everything depends on their character and the culture they institute. And even if they are generally ethical, a small company CEO who does a good job probably sacrifices a lot and then feels entitled to sacrifices from employees. And if you can't deal with politics in a small company, you can't transfer to another division. There are lots of potential drawbacks of a small company, like a small town.
There is an important difference, though. Small companies and individuals often fly under the radar of wacky bureaucratic rules like this, whereas big companies are more visible and are stuck with them. By routing all the small-timers through a big company, they can no longer do that.
You might say, small companies should be following these rules regardless so this is just as well. And I'd probably agree. But it's still a pretty big difference.
I know that we tell ourselves this story about management just so we can justify doing the bare minimum as employees.
But where does that leave us as a society?
I just feel this cynical statement is as silly as a blanket statement as one that would say the opposite, something like "companies provide value and jobs and take care of employees"
I would argue though, that the way you describe companies is definitely more true of larger companies because people just aren't invested/attached to each other and that enables that kind of thinking (employees just lines on a spreadsheet).
Many small businesses (and small business owners like myself) do want to build a team and take care of the team and hope the team also invests back into the company. That doesn't mean they can't lay people off if they can't afford to keep them. But things are more likely to be human at a smaller size anyway.
I've spent most entire career at relatively small companies (25-100 employees). I've never seen these types of issues (I can't say they've never happened, I'm just not aware of any).
In fact, reading these stories is probably why I've never had the desire to apply to work at any of the large tech companies.
I can't say for certain what the differences are, but I think smaller companies tend of have less office politics, less ambition as there is less opportunity for promotion, more shared goals (everyone works on one product), fewer layers of management, and more personal interaction with management.
Big companies (public or private) have evolved beyond that and are more of a system than a person.
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