Martha Stewart Living Reviews

Pros

Strong brand, diversified company, chance to learn across divisions

Cons

Upper management made drastic cuts last year to show better profitability...cutting out some of the best minds.

Pros

national brand recognition for ease of marketing

Cons

financial leadership needs some stability

Pros

Being able to say I worked for Martha Stewart

Cons

Just a generally screwed up environment

Pros

Employees are very helpful, creative, and friendly. Benefits (not salary) are decent. Office space is very open, organized, and clean. Many of Martha's own resources are at your fingertips...courtesy of Martha. Perfectionist environment.

Cons

Executive Management (not all but a few in particular) have skewed work level expectations. If you are a designer, you will work 24/7. Promotions happen every 3-5 years and are not announced. If you request more than a days vacation, expect to receive slack. Very little appreciation for people's work and time. Salary is not competitive.

Advice to Senior Management

We recently had a company meeting to discuss the corporate culture. The takeaway from the meeting or "town hall" was we need to learn how to "respect each other more, trust each other more, and let each other swim in our own lanes." They must of forgot to explain this to management. Respect other people's time and the office can be more efficient.

Pros

Great products and good teams who believe in their work and are proud of the products and services they produce.

Cons

Considering the hours worked, compensation could be higher. Culture doesn't really support hourly lunches. People work through lunch and usually eat at their desks.

Advice to Senior Management

Art directors are rewarded for their work through promotions and salaries, but the entire editorial staff works hard and should be equally rewarded.

Pros

Wildly creative place, great people. Interesting projects. And the depth of reach and influence in terms of how you can shape something is easily helped by all our media channels, and that's cool to watch.

Cons

Upper echelon lives in an ivory tower. Pay scale is not that great. And the bonus situation and yearly raises are sub-par. Certain managers have (oh, shall we say) anger issues. Projects aren't really managed well a lot of the time. And the designers...poor things, they are there 24/7.

Advice to Senior Management

Money is a beautiful thing, and it should be shared and passed around. And guess what? Money is an incredible way to reward your hard-working employees. And we do work hard. Next time you want to figure out how to give accolades to your employees, who are making this whole thing happen for you, throw them ALL some money. You wouldn't be where you are without us. Yes, you are amazing Martha, and your exec level staff is too....but so are all the minions. Reward us. With cash-ola.

Pros

they had good benefits, its mostly women and for the most part people are nice and friendly, you get to see a lot of cool products they are developing and the people working there are talented so you can see the best of the best in cuisine/ entertaining/etc, its pretty, they have great events.

Cons

its a very competitive and negative environment. there is a lot of office politics and gossip (because it is a mainly female workplace) . its stressful being in a place where there is so much micromanagement, and everyone is so focused on the absolute perfect result. some of the people are impossible, lots of attitude and drama.

Advice to Senior Management

work on being nicer to employees, so that they might want to work harder for you . dont be so negative.

Pros

inspiring, creative colleagues with excellent work ethic. always willing to help each other out.

Cons

there is no such thing in "all in a day's work"

Advice to Senior Management

everything and anything can be all in a day's work - bad or good depending upon how much you already have on your plate (usually an insurmountable amount of work)

Pros

A lot of responsibility given to employees with great work ethic. Amazing talent in coworkers and a great place to cut your teeth in the industry.

Cons

Very management heavy and inefficient. Very long hours and high expectations with little or no reward in compensation or promotion.

Advice to Senior Management

Work together to streamline meetings with staff in order to decrease confusion and time wasting. Employees will be happier and give even more if they don't feel taken advantage of.

Pros

The name and small recognition it still holds.

Cons

Horrible, horrible, horrible management. Unorganized company.

Advice to Senior Management

Get your company back on track