Critical Mass Reviews

Pros

CM has some of the most prestigous clients in the world, and the bragging rights one gains by working on those accounts is tremendous. Lots of very talented staff, and a great commeraderie among employees. Relaxed dress code and attitudes.

Cons

Pay is terrible. Overtime is completely taken for granted. The best people are worked to death and shuffled off, while those who can schmooze at the office parties are most likely to be promoted. So much potential, but the mistreatment of employees leaves a terrible taste in ones mouth. There are a few dozen people in the "elite" clique, who seem to be "above the law" while the hundres of people who do most of the work are treated like dogs.

Advice to Senior Management

Put your money where your mouth is. You talk about how important the people are, but you treat them like garbage.

Pros

No shortage of lovely talented, decent people. Access to blue chip brands.

Cons

Surprisingly clueless about the conceptual industry, particularly in the cultivation and execution of ideas. Horrendous stifling, defensive and passive aggressive clique(s) that(s) promote the mediocre (who are willing to rut). Huge profits were once made from young hard-working graduates of nearby art college; this model no longer applies to the average digital professional.

Advice to Senior Management

Make an effort to allow individuals to exploit their specific talents; they are willing to make you richer. Demolish the closed fraternities/sororities that exclude most new talent. (Look in the mirror.)

Pros

Critical Mass has an impressive client list and portfolio.

Cons

This company likes to exploit younger professionals who are less likely to complain about a work life balance. Long hours and rushed deadlines are the norm. While they provide adequate pay and insurance benefits, salary bonuses and recognition for a job well done are practically non-existent unless you are in the right clique. In addition, the company and its people aren't managed well which has resulted in a downward trend in quality work and employee morale.

Advice to Senior Management

I would encourage them to take a management course to understand how to manage people, because that's not a quality any of them seem to possess.

Pros

Relatively flat management structure, no B.S. Sr Management attitude (i.e. they tell it like it is without pretense, and it's easy to talk to Sr. Management). Opportunity to work on top-tier clients on interesting interactive work. Client base appears to be vary stable (knock on wood) owing to CM's emphasis on long-term engagements with companies with deep pockets. The people on project teams are some of the best people I have ever worked with. One of the great things about CM culture is that if you have something innovative that you'd like to try, there's really nothing stopping you from doing it - its a very supportive and positively oriented place to work, and that is not something you get everywhere.

Cons

Critical Mass is still struggling somewhat with its growth and has had a hard time adjusting from a company consisting of one Calgary based central office to a company with large offices in Chicago, Toronto and London. Although there has been some work done toward this, employee empowerment is still not equally shared across all offices - Calgary still holds the ball on many things that they need to loosen their grip on. The problem is not really senior managment, but middle management types who are afraid of losing their share of the pie. Relax guys, it will be a good thing to let it go a little!

Another thing that CM lacks right now is spiritual leadership and vision. I'm not talking about Di here, because I think she does a great job overall at making the right kinds of business decisions and is really a "CEO of the people." But there have been a number of departures of exceptional people that are very worrysome, as they were the type of peopl who could push things ahead and get CM on the leading edge. The blade is becoming decidedly duller these days - Many of these departures were of people who truly believed in the potential of the company and who only wanted what was best. Many were trying to make CM a more innovative and technologically savvy company. They were able to rally people around to push the envelope and knew how to work the system to get stuff done. Although its inevitable, in this business, to have turnover, many of these people could have been quite happy to stay if they hadn't been thwarted, worked to the bone, taken advantage of and just generally mistreated.

Which brings me to a third downside of working at Critical Mass, and that is that there is a propensity for the company to take advantage of its employees. Ok so all companies do this, but usually there is at least a nod of recompense. Critical Mass is awesome at stealing people's time and really awful at giving it back. The ratio of working overtime to time off in lieu is abysmally low - something like 40 hours worked to one day off in lieue (and that's just an estimate, as it's totally discretionary and varies accross accounts and offices). Funnily, it seems to improve based on account performance - if you're on a profitable account, you seem to get more recognition and time off - but if you're trying to fix a poorly performing account, or trying to get a new account off the ground, you get nothing - it's up to you to take a mental health day. There really is too much inconsistency in this kind of stuff - it really depends if you have account and project and performance managers who understand how to protect their people. It doesn't help that the ones in positions to protect their people are themselves encouraged to become workaholics (if they're not already by nature). What management types at CM in Calgary (and i'm mainly talking about the middle managers) STILL don't get is that there are LOTS of places to work in interactive in Chicago, Toronto, and London, but only one in Calgary. Don't think that the economy will stop people from looking, and don't think that the lack of summer hours, time off in lieu, feeble review process and token raises is doing you any favors in cities, and an industry where many of these things are taken for granted.

Advice to Senior Management

I actually think that much of the Senior Management team gets what needs to be done, but there's a lack of imagination and will amongst the ones that are responsible for implementing and loosening things up (veeps and lower). Focus on the people, protect them, nurture them - you have exceptional talent. Don't lose any more due to mismanagement.

Pros

They do try to take care of the employees and are willing to listen to complaints and work towards amending them and creating a better environment to work in.

Multi-directional communication is there - talking to the top honcho to the lowest of the low without having to worry that someone will feel as though you have gone over their head.

I feel as though I am friends with my superiors.

Large name brand clients are always good for the resume.

Cons

Slow/inconsistent review process. While there is a system in place for reviews there is no consistent training of art directors/managers to implement it - this is changing but not quickly or consistently.

Non transparent salary range expectations. Entry level candidates have negotiated better contracts than they are willing to give tried and tested loyal employees.

Confusion - there is a lot of confusion in terms of knowledge sharing across the company as well as just generally too many cooks in the kitchen sometimes. The wheel is often reinvented due to not knowing what the left hand is doing as it were.

Account directors working like Creative directors and not truly trying to sell ideas through but rather bending over backwards to placate/play the role of the client.

While certain things are in place to try and remedy this - the career training is non-existent. Trying to get a training course covered for work is next to impossible.

Improper level of empowerment. People are unable to fully do their job and if they are good at what they do then they are often called upon to wear more than one hat without ever being recognized for doing so - even if it means doing entire projects themselves above and beyond what their job description would ever require of them.

Teams often feel bloated - smaller teams with tighter integration would be meet client needs better and quicker - the red tape is infuriating.

Turnover of top talent is getting bad.

Advice to Senior Management

Get on top of the reviews and transparency in hiring practices and salary negotiations or you will continue to lose senior/performing creatives. More team empowerment. Dianne is on the right track - and we all love her - it just feels as though Critical Mass needs to slow down for a month or so and get all their HR/Management/employee expectations etc in line.

Pros

Many different technologies and top brands to work for. Very liberal style work place. People are very nice. Lots of young people and Parties... Possibilities for relocating to other parts of the world.

Cons

Salary level is lower than average. You have to be able to voice a lot to get recognition. Performance review is flawed. Quality of work tends to average out with entry to mid level people.

Advice to Senior Management

CM tends to believe PR is better than Performance.

Pros

a lot of big interesting clients; relatively flat org structure; really smart and fun people; company is the perfect size; still growing despite hard economic times that have hit our clients hard; fun culture

Cons

centralization--doesn't work with all the offices they have and it takes forever for things to get rolling; employee retention--no career pathing, poor middle manager skills; pay--generally lower than competitors; nepotism; lackluster support for internal needs/initiatives; not as creative as they like to think they are; uphill battle for exposure; exec doesn't present a unified front nor communicate well-enough (or regularly enough) down through the ranks

Advice to Senior Management

when you see a problem, address it. when you make a decision to do something... actually commit.

Pros

People are excellent and the clients are highly respected.

Cons

Compensation is not at the top end of the industry although the client list is top-notch. Seeing top quality people leave the company is hard for morale as others wonder if they should also leave. Recent departure of several senior management has started rumours that they may know something that others do not.

Advice to Senior Management

If Critical Mass wants to be at the top of the digital space, then it needs to pay closer to the top of the digital space. Management has said that Critical Mass will never be at the top in regards to pay - so how is great work to be done?

Pros

Critical Mass has an open and dynamic work environment where people can get exposed to many different roles and projects and types of marketing work. It's a good place to gain some experience in the digital agency industry, and to improve your teamwork skills.

Cons

Critical Mass has problems with responding to employee concerns in a timely manner. Nagging issues which would otherwise be easy to solve are swept under the rug. This has caused a lot of turnover in spite of the ongoing attempt to keep a strong culture and an open discussion going.

Advice to Senior Management

You have a good base built, but please dig deeper into the complaints and requests that your employees give you and try to really listen to what your employees want. Don't shove your own interpretation of retention strategy down people's throats. Team building exercises and parties don't make up for lack of progress in other key career development areas.

Pros

Variety of clients to work for, challenging environments and ideas. Room for advancement in some specialties. Like to have a lot of fun in downtime. In other words, lots of beer.

Cons

work-life balance not only not respected but actively considered poor choice for advancement. massive disconnect between bottom level employees and senior level management. Not all 'types' of employees considered equal. It's also very unclear as to how you can push for the best things when the company seems to actively dissuade the 'right solution' even when the benefits are clear.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to listen realistically to the people that really matter. If the messages aren't coming up from those just below you, you're not hearing anything that is being told to them. middle management is the bulk of the problem.