Metroland Media Group Reviews

I have been working at Metroland Media Group

Pros – Great company Great pay Awesome service

Cons – have to work outside in all kinds of weather

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Metroland Media Group full-time for less than a year

Pros – Flexibility with work hours, this is excellent if you have a family.

Cons – Wages are low depending on the division you are in.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay people according to their experience.

I have been working at Metroland Media Group

Pros – If you like to be micro managed this is the job for you! Your opinion is heard on deaf ears. Its a job that's all !

Cons – Managers that should not speak to sales people. Demotivating environement, they misrepresent to new employees. Bias environment and lack of team spirit all directed by their manager. Someone is to blame and it is never due to lack of leadership. Managers are untrust worthy and scapgoat to employees they may not like? The pay is less than industry standard but they represent it otherwise. Be aware before you leap into this mess. I'm not writing this for sour grapes. One week after I landed here and looked around and I started looking for the door! I wish someone warned me! WOW! It was an eye opener! .

Advice to Senior Management – Management that shouldn't be in management is the problem. Read some books on how to be a good manager. Be respectful, professional, not rude and strung out freak!..The key to being successful is to have some semblence of a calm and positive environment! Future looks grim if you are relying on these fellows for the future of the company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Metroland Media Group

Pros – It was a very easy job

Cons – It had very low pay

Advice to Senior Management – raise pay

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Metroland Media Group

Pros – The people are the heart of this company. Employees are dedicated and respectfull of each other. Full benefits are available and new employees start with three weeks vacation.

Cons – A lack of high level responsibility and vision in key business areas. Organized under a federated model with much autonomy throughout the regions resulting in no central decision making or direction created at the corporate level, and therefore no capatalization of economies of scale or company wide acceptance of best practices within business units.

Advice to Senior Management – Better communication throughout the company and from management down. Regional publishers in particular appear to do a poor job of passing information on to their regional employees. If company cannot develop company wide strategies, and capitalize on economies of scale, it will not prosper in the coming years.

I worked at Metroland Media Group

Pros – Large company with a well-known reputation for delivering community newspapers, location of offices are found throughout south central GTA which allows employees to work closer to home and commute less. Most of the people are very nice to work with and is a pretty good atmosphere. Depending on which department you work in the pay is mostly fair to average and avergage to good in sales. Their newpapers are a recognizable brand in every community. This division is part of Torstar who have resources to move this company into the future.

Cons – Advertising rates are way too high for most small independant businesses and they are now resorting to internet marketing and e-commerce which is more affordable and effective.Some bad products that no one reads or wants ie. business times, city magazine. Sales people know where and how to place ads but most do not have knowledge of marketing in order to generate leads for a business. They focus too much on their sales and not enough on customers. The sales peoples biggest competitor in the market place is their own associates who go after existing clients and undercut pricing just to get a sale which causes resentment between co-workers. Some of the Managers like-to micro-manage and many of them are just incompetant at managing and motivating people properly. Some prefer to use old school fear-based tactics to increase revenues from sales people. The graphics department uses very few artists who know how to properly design an ad to get results for a customer. They have basic-average knowledge of programs and software resulting in errors, inconsistencies and no results. The newspaper business is on a downward decline to the growth of the internet.Although the editorial department is pretty good, the editorial is very water-downed and is drowned out by all the in-paper advertising and inserts. Plus, it is very old news. Who knows where this company will be in 10 years as their stock continues to decline.

Advice to Senior Management – Put a focus on improving a few products and get rid of the dead weight like the business times and city magazines. Get back to basics and focus on newspapers and their editorial - go after internet marketing by offering online advertising in a package with print advertising.Treat all employees people fairly and with respect. Give your employees proper recognition for a job well done. Stop-micro-managing and see that if people are in outside sales they do not need to be micro-managed. Improve your management skills with training outside the company in areas of internet publishing, marketing and new media as this is
Metroland's future in publishing.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend