In the last few years, business has become harder and harder to come by and keep--seems like the company needs to drive new business more aggressively and/or rely less on word of mouth/referrals. In turn, employees are not seeing the raises or promotions they deserve and so putting in the extra effort, commute to RTO, and participate in extra curriculars is painful for many. There are 2 clear employee groups: those who have been at the company a really long time (> 8 years) and those who have been there a relatively short time (< 3 years); take that as you see fit.
Communication really varies depending on what it is and who you're looking to get answers from. This is probably due to being stretched across many projects or tasks but it can really make for shaky ground.