AKQA – “Innovative company, but poor employee retention”

Pros

You get to work with young creative people. Also the idea of the company is pretty appealing and may look good on your resume.

Cons

It's fast paced, you will be overworked without compensation, and don't expect a promotion unless you are good friends with management. They promote their buddies.

Advice to Senior Management

If you expect employees to bend over backwards 47 weeks of the year, allow them them flexibility to take vacation when they want to use it and they should have the right to use all of it at once. Don't expect your employees to be available over holidays last minute.

Also employee of the month is demotivating. It praises the managers and people that are already in a job position that deals a lot with people. There are a lot of jobs that do not allow a lot of exposure to others. These are biased praises and you fail to recognize others who do a great job but don't have the kind of job that is helping others directly. I'd recommend getting rid of the employee of the month and replacing it with submitted kudos where everyone who is thanked in the kudos get's recognized.

Managers should have managerial training outside of work experience. Send them to classes and courses. They need to know how to manage people in a fair manner.