Dominion Enterprises Reviews

Pros

Excellent benefits
Good environment
Bonus structure allows ability to make almost half your salary, in addition to your salary
Very relaxed and stress free position
Excellent manager - very understanding of need to balance work and family

Cons

No raises for the last 4 years!
Beginning to fall apart
Wages directly affected by sales rep (action or inaction)
Ops team overwhelmed, very slow to respond to suggestions/necessary tweaks

Pros

Casual work environment. Great people to work with. Good benefits. Jack Ross is really moving Dominion Enterprises in the right direction. Since taking over as CEO, Jack has begun to transform the company from the old stiff back. He listens to what the employees have to say, takes occasional surveys to find out what we all feel is the next important obstacle to tackle and acts on his promises in a diligent manner.

The company also promotes health. They have programs in place with one of the local gyms to offer employees lower prices. The company pays 50% of the fees for Weight Watchers, and offer 2 meetings a week. Annual walk competitions, healthier food in the vending machines, etc are just some more of the things they offer to promote good health.

One of the biggest Pros to working at DE, especially if it's with ForRent.com, is the people you get to work with. I have worked with some true professionals and everyone enjoys what they do.

I have worked for this company for 5 years and am really going to miss it when I leave next week.

Cons

There are always cons to a company. The biggest con I have found is favoritism.

Advice to Senior Management

Evaluate your people. Know their strengths, weaknesses and promote the people who deserve it.

Pros

10 years and counting...that should sum up that I'm a happy camper. Best reasons to work here? Senior Management listens to the field and responds, takes action. I am respected and have been rewarded for doing a good job. I've been given the flexibility to take time off when needed as I was raising my young child and was able to be involved in all of his important days/events at school. Award trips are generous and outstanding! I love my team!

Cons

Well, the economy has of course changed things for all of us and well we struggle in the media industry the stress has taken its toll on many. That said the bummies and crummies have mostly gone away. It's been a tough year....but there will be brighter days ahead.

There has been a lot of negative feedback on this site and I would guess that most is from past disgruntled employees who either didn't communicate effectively or wouldn't... In this business you have to create your own success. If you don't have the drive, ambition or ability to communicate effectively you will probably end up frustrated and bitter enough to write about it!!

Advice to Senior Management

Thanks for listening, keep it up! We're all in this together and I for one appreciate how I've been treated and rewarded. Sure, commission and bonuses could always be higher!!!!

Pros

Good Benefits, Nice Building(Great Views), Middle management "can" be okay, work-life is sufficient. Jack Ross is trying everything in the book to improve morale including casual attire, and early leave for home office before holidays etc.

Cons

Dominion pays historically low compared to the rest of the market. In case you didn't see it, Low Pay.

A good degree or even two will likely not be considered too relevant here. They do tend to reward good performers with extra responsibilities, however pay is not commensurate. A lot of the business is still derived from the family business and is somewhat miserly.

Senior Management doesn't follow rational sense. Given the opportunity to add a person and improve a process thus making more money, or push current staff to over capacity it is the later that wins.

Despite recent statements if you are not from NA or UVA it can be difficult to make it in & up. Pretty conservative and definitely Right of Center.

Lastly. business is contracting and folding in on itself, therefore what opportunities there were are diminishing quickly as departments and business units are consolidated.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the the morale boosters. It's about all there is going right now. Keep Jack in place, he is at least energetic. I don't know what to recommend about the good ole boys club. Good luck there.

Pros

Satellite offices offer flexibility.
Commissions, both residual and start up.
Benefits.
Phone, office and car allowances for outside sales.

Cons

Company identity and company focus were wildly changing, and seemingly unable to settle into a proper gear.
Very little support.
Upside down bookkeeping allowed client payments to be applied to the oldest bills- for which commission was not paid. (Bad form!)
No real vacation time off.

Advice to Senior Management

Advertisers were annoyed and loathed to buy print media with drastically limited distribution. Lying about distribution cuts (while still charging optimum prices) further killed print sales. Offering discounts for print AFTER cutting distribution caused advertisers to feel abused....which they were. These practices destroyed client/sales relationships which are painstakingly built over years.
While Internet advertising seemed the wave of the future- competition in this arena required expertise and solid performance-neither of which was adequate.
You must be ready to deliver what you promise- 100%. This was sadly- not the case.

Pros

Good pay, good people, great leadership skills

Cons

too many hours, not enough compensation, stressful

Advice to Senior Management

less hours, less responsibility

Pros

They pay you.
Benefits are ok.

Cons

Don't expect to advance.
Senior Management are very near sighted. They can't see past their bonuses.
Few holidays.
Too few people desperately trying to do way too much, and things falls through the cracks, which management is extremely quick to notice, and not all the other work that actually gets done.

Advice to Senior Management

It does not make any sense to give them any advice or feedback- they would not listen to it anyway.

Pros

They are always hiring because they burn through so many employees. Easy to get hired and instant income while you search for another job.

Cons

Outbound calling all day on an old, heavily worked list of leads

Pros

Excellent benefits package. Fairly flexible with time off, unless management wanted to use denial of time off to punish you for anything they could think of...and they did.

Cons

Management and supervisory staff were completely inept, self serving. Three of the local office's top managers had never had any prior work experience. The computer system is so bad it actually created work rather than helping streamline it. Data is frequently lost and in spite of presenting proof of the data being entered and confirmed, the employee would be reprimanded. Management set quotas to be met or dismissal was threatened. When the quota numbers were tallied several employees were told they were not meeting quotas. When the employees were able to prove that they had, in fact, actually met those quotas, management basically said " oops, guess we were wrong". Unfortunately their tallying methods had been used to dismiss 20 to 30 employees who trusted that management was being honest. In the end it was just a way to reduce staff because of declining customer base. The customer base declined because of inconsistent rules, prices, computer functions and very poor contact options.

Advice to Senior Management

This is the real world. You may think that by hiring low wage employees that you can pull some unethical tricks. Be aware, some of those employees just may be a lot more experienced, knowledgable, and savvy than you are or are giving credit. You may be what you consider to be a "big fish". But remember, your piece of "the pond" is a very small piece, and the actual pond has real executive managers who look down at you the same as you looked down on the "little fish" in your section of your little pond. And every pond needs cleaning before it gets emptied.

Pros

Decent benefits, free drinks, free parking

Cons

low pay, no advancement unless you're a preferred "in-crowd" employee.

Advice to Senior Management

Sadly they are willing to take advantage of your skills and avoid paying a fair wage, but there's plenty where that came from