Gannett Reviews in Phoenix, AZ Area

Current Employee – been working at Gannett full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Lots of smart, dedicated colleagues
More forward-thinking than a lot of media companies
Great salary potential (for sales roles)

Cons – High expectations = high stress
poor internal communication

Advice to Senior Management – Need to better communicate to all teams - not silos
Need to give initiatives/strategies the time needed to be successful

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Gannett full-time for less than a year

Pros – Floor Has Carpet Telephones work .

Cons – out of touch interview style - management ( ? ) relies almost exclusively on performance test results - they can't make decisions without test results - interviewer can't make eye contact to busy reading questions on lap top - management doesn't know how to communicate - blank stares when asking questions - sales manager seems lost doesn't have clear objectives

Advice to Senior Management – get a job that requires no talking or communicating.go to school to learn how to interview.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Gannett full-time for more than a year

Pros – High Growth Potential, good corporate benefits

Cons – Minimal Structure, you have to work in the "messy"

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Gannett full-time for less than a year

Pros – Not a lot to say here... There are many good people within the company but a few spoil it for everyone.

Cons – Unfortunately my experiences were pretty negative. I was guaranteed in contract and writing three months commissions, I only received one after two months of work before being terminated. The services on the products Republic Media/The Arizona Repblic/Gannett/Gannett Local sells are an absolute mess.

The levels of in-depth support on said services leaves very little to be desired. Advertisers should expect better quality and ROI for their money, honestly. There's very little to no standards in Ad Quality, Digital Campaign Standards and the company as a whole is severely lacking in experience.

Account managers are over-worked and under paid. They also handle the brunt of some client relations and workload that should belong to Sales Executives gets dumped on their laps.

In respect to sales management, there's very little adherence to KPI such as talk time, sales appointments run, conversion rates, proposals made and the modern practices of using Salesforce.com (for effective pipeline and lead management). All standard practices are virtually non-existent. the offices in Mesa, AZ sound like a Library, there's virtually little to no sales activity happening here... There's two or three people that carry that entire office, God bless them for it...

Employees are very cliquish and stand-offish. Regardless of your personal or professional experience they tend to disregard everything you say; then they take credit for your suggestions or work. The company is terrible at recognizing any individuals contributions.

Some of their employees tend to be super exclusive and hold the failures of previous employees or other working groups against you. They are quick to make personal judgments about you, one employee keyed my car. I had managers laughing about having to let me go because I couldn't "meld with their team" and basically told it was "too bad if I had to put in 10 hour days" that that's what's "expected of an employee in their first 90 days".

In summary, high promises with unobtainable goals, terrible management, even worse at internal communication, bad product/service pricing, terrible to non-existent customer service, terribly unrealistic expectations from management. Top that all off with a negative culture and a lot of complaints around the office. The Mesa office has some great staffers who have been there a long time. They are what keep this office rolling and deserve raises across the board.

Unfortunately filled with seriously unprofessional behavior that no self respecting person could tolerate it for very long unless you're desperate for a salary and a good beating every single day.

I've never experienced anything quite like I did at this company, in my entire life.

Advice to Senior Management – Get your sales staff to adhere to KPI, don't take everything that your sales team tells you at face value. Don't allow your staff to alienate new members of your team and work harder at making newly hired employees feel more welcome rather than dragging them through the mud and loading a ton of extra work on them. Develop a training and/or onboarding process for newly hired employees that actually makes sense. Seriously unprofessional to laugh in a "private"/"closed doors" meeting about terminating an employee.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Gannett full-time for less than a year

Pros – Large company so there's plenty of opportunity for advancement. My department provides me an opportunity to develop new initiatives and set independent goals for myself and my team. Plenty of autonomy

Cons – A 100 year old company so there are many employees unwilling to move into the digital age. Slow movement but change takes longer for some. Health insurance is quite awful

Advice to Senior Management – Not much to complain about, I enjoy working for the company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Gannett full-time for more than a year

Pros – GannettLocal has undergone a complete overhaul in the past year. New management, new sales team, new vision and goals.

- Fun environment with a lot of young sales professionals
- Monthly sales contests that make it possible to make a lot of money through spiffs
- Solid starting salary plus unlimited potential for commission with a tiered structure
- Driven management team with a clear vision for growth in mind
- Backing of Gannett, giving immediate credibility to our division
- Agency feel within a very large company

Cons – - Still behind in terms of providing solid sales tools in terms of current client proof of performance, case studies, etc.
- Technology and equipment is outdated (computers, phones, chairs, etc.)
- Massive growth divided teams between three separate offices making it difficult to build a consistent culture

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to work towards providing sales teams with more tools to make the sale easier

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Gannett

Pros – - Good pay
- Nice people to work with
- Feel like the company is going to keep growing and getting better
- Management is willing to help you if you reach out and want to improve yourself

Cons – - it is a start-up so some days can be rocky
- new managers are learning how to be helpful and give you solid advice
- need to grow quickly to compete with others in the same space

Advice to Senior Management – - focus on finding new talent that is dedicated to making gannett better
- keep funding start-ups like gannett local to find new revenue

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Gannett

Pros – • New VP of Sales is the only chance this place has to make it.
• New focus on uncovering pains of local businesses and not just getting on the phone and using techie words. This is huge because most SEO companies just have reps that call and make local biz owners feel stupid with their lingo.
• Most of the people are nice.
• The logo is gets attention.

Cons – • Morale is very low.
• Can not compete with companies like Reach Local or Yodle.
• The strategy of only calling cities with local Gannett newspapers is not working.
• Marketing department should be fired and get new people that are credible. All they do is blab about social media and there is total disconnect for sales. The average biz owner could care less. Gannett Local is a classic textbook example of how sales and marketing departments are disconnected in most companies.
• New hires leave after a few weeks
• Some of the sales techniques are deceptive
• Print media is a huge focus and that is a trap.
• Leads are recycled. I get most companies do this because sometimes another voice gets a yes. But seriously do three people need to call the same lead that day?

Advice to Senior Management – • Focus on sales and get some real marketing people.
• Do advertising to get name out there!
• Get rid of the people that are just there working the AZ Republic customers.
• Do better product training with the reps.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Gannett

Pros – There are some honest sales professionals at Gannett Local that truly provide a beneficial service for their clients. They are trying to maintain their integrity. If you are a Gennett Local client and one of these people is your rep please support their efforts to maintain their good reputation. And there are some nice people at Gannett Local trying to make working here bearable.

Cons – How many Sales Professionals have been churned through Gannett Local in the past year? 50 or more? Could they all have sucked so bad? Maybe it's the picked over leads cannibalized from the AZ Republic sales team. Maybe it is the same old tired print product packaged with resale of only-relevant-to-techi-hipsters SEO and PPC.
What makes this a soul sucking boiler room is management's constant distrust and berating of the employees. Now we're being asked to be dishonest to our prospects. Manipulation and deceit kills sale.
True sales professionals should steer clear of this place. You'll spend the few weeks you are here selling management on your ability to be as deceitful as they are, not actually building a loyal customer base.

Advice to Senior Management – By treating your salespeople like crooks and asking your salespeople to be deceitful you are validating your prospects perception that your salespeople are crooks.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Gannett

Pros – I worked in the online division selling advertising. Pros - being part of a large company means more digital innovations than smaller companies, more room for advancement

Cons – A lot of politics and policies, from billing to working with other reps. Commission payout is a little funky and not always fair. Overall a good job though.

Advice to Senior Management – Old newspaper policies need to be revisited, they don't apply anymore especially since websites will be the core money maker in the future. More online training - need to get ahead of the game.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend