One Communications Reviews

Pros

- Still many great people on the front lines as individual contributors, low & mid level managers throughout the organization.

-Good vacation/time off policy & telecommuting

Cons

-Lack of business results.

-No trust in senior leadership. At one time people were all driven to do the right thing. People all worked hard and had fun. Unfortunately that is in the past and good people have been leaving, and those remaining have had the energy sucked from them due to the behavior of senior leadership.

-CEO's friends, and friends of those friends, have been put in charge of major areas of the business but have failed to deliver. Look at the business results, credit cuts and layoffs as evidence.

- Strong performers were demoted or fired to make room for the CEO's Sprint/Williams friends and an extended inner circle of cronies. This might be tolerable if they performed, but instead they’ve failed and yet most remain on payroll.

-Sales numbers constantly under perform, while other companies are beginning to grow again. Yes, one of the CEO's buddies is in charge of sales/marketing and has been for a couple of years. They’ve replaced most of the sales leadership except for this guy and results still suck.

-No long term commitment from senior leadership. Virtually none of these guys have been willing to relocate to Boston or Rochester even though they've been around for several years. Hence the company has spent a TON of money on air travel and living expenses for these guys so they can commute weekly from all over the country and live in expensive, company subsidized rental properties in the Boston area.

-S&P credit rating recently cut again

-No money for raises for 3 years.

-Periodic ongoing layoffs for 2 years, with the ever present doom of more layoffs pending. Yet somehow the CEO and his buddies remain untouchable.

Advice to Senior Management

-Leave now before you totally destroy this company. The employees are real people and their families and communities (where you don’t live) are important to them and depend on One Comm to be a successful company.

-Advice to anyone that may acquire One Comm.- Fire the CEO and the entire executive team and all VP’s upon signature of the deal. Don’t even seek advice from them, because their opinions and knowledge of this business are worthless and they will only serve to confound your acquisition plans. All of the operational business knowledge and expertise is in the middle and lower ranks of the company. These are the folks that you will need for a successful acquisition.

BOD – Wake up! You have left an incompetent leadership team in place for 3 years. They were always the wrong team. Look at their track record of the companies they've managed and what you've allowed them to do at One Communications!

Pros

4 weeks of vacation
some great people to work with
interesting technology
flexible work environment
many opportunities to contribute to the team

Cons

poor communication from senior management
inconsistent company direction that is not communicated
too much emphasis on financial targets instead of customer satisfaction
inefficient processes

Advice to Senior Management

The culture of this company needs changing. The merger needs to be completed. Poor managers need to be eliminated. Try communicating with employees openly and honestly about the state of the company.

Pros

good hours
employees are nice
nice office furniture

Cons

commission changes monthy and not to the benifit of the employee
they took away two holidays with no notice

Advice to Senior Management

stop screwing the employees with commissions

Pros

Very Transparent organization with monthly performance updates from our CEO & Quarterly updates in person live with CEO or other Mgmt.

Cons

Not all employee's are results driven, unprofessional dress, immaturity among some staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Raise the bar. Don't have it be employee driven. Demand more!

Pros

Somewhat flexible work schedule, ability to take off up to 8 hours for community service, friendly & helpful co-workers, ability to learn as much as you want in regards to telecommunications and networking from an ISP prospective

Cons

No employer match on 401k & no raises due to financial issues (for the past 3 years), all repair techs regardless of actual job duty are tied to the phone (ie. you have to sign out of your phone every time you leave your desk to go to the bathroom, actual work day schedule is very rigid and compliance to schedule is part of review process, morale is low and employees feel management doesn't appreciate them. Difficult to support clients due to multiple systems that aren't all implemented 100%. Confusing policies in terms of relations between repair departments & overall network security focus

Advice to Senior Management

Treat employees like responsible people instead of numbers and babies that need to be watched over. Allow employees the flexibility in their work day to do their job effectively. Consolidate all systems so all repair techs can more efficiently navigate the system.

Pros

Decent pay for some employees. Decent flexibility in work schedule.

Cons

Where to start. Poor Senior Management, poor middle management. Senior Mgmt barely visible to folks in Rochester. Main office in Rochester in a horrible location (don't miss having to pay for parking and walk 10 minutes). Poor communication from top down. HR is a joke. Managers get to do what they want and HR condones it. It used to be a decent company until new CEO came in and brought in all of his people. Real working people were getting laid off yet we were hiring more VPs.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit and let someone who knows what they are doing run the company before it's too late.

Pros

The company started as a melting pot of best-of-breed technologies. Front-ends written in .NET and back ends written in Java, PHP and other *NIX languages. It also had a start-up mentality where process was added organically by the people in the trenches in a way that made sense to the people doing the work.

Cons

Since the merger (2007), the company has floundered and has lost its way. There is no clear message as to what the technology platform is. Process is added seemingly because a buzzword popped into someone's head. And modernizing or even staying current with industry practices is discouraged largely because that's not how things have been done up until now.

Advice to Senior Management

Have a vision and communicate it - the goal of achieving EBITDA targets doesn't count as a vision. Define a roadmap and then align behind it - it's been three years and you're still debating technology choices. And for God sake stop saying that Rochester and Waltham are equal - Mass is better compensated and more frequently recognized, and it just makes you look hypocritical.

Pros

It's a paycheck. Good technology. Great people in the trenches.

Cons

Upper management is incompetent and likes to preach teamwork and values, but doesn't lead by example. Upper management has little to no leadership skills; takes on projects and then doesn't pay attention to them until they become critical. Managers don't pay attention to the needs of their front line people. No raises, no 401K match. Not a stable company to work for. Information changes on a monthly basis giving upper management the use of the "I don't recall that ever being said" excuse. Accurate training is null: lower level management trains new hires and the lower level managers were doing things wrong to begin with thereby perpetuating the problem. Too many VP's with too little knowledge. Lot's of promises, little follow through. Some managers try to make changes contrary to the company handbook.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of about 20 VP's and start over. Too many cooks in the kitchen. This company can't do any worse.

Pros

I work with great people in my department. We are very close and will do almost anything to help coworkers. Tech support are very knowledgeable. Good amount of personal time off. The pay is decent.

Cons

It is always nice to have a VP calling directly to micromanage just one group. Rules/policies are not enforced for certain departments. Benefits and moral have been declining for the last 5 years. 401K match has been discontinued while MGT keeps their bonuses. The only time you hear from MGT is when they want to complain how things where handled. New hires have little to no training. The threat of not having a job is looking better every day. Most of the higher MGT have ran other companies into the ground, now they are working at One Communications.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop feeding employees a load of crap. You can only lead someone on for so long before they give up. Give employees an incentive to stay with the company.

Pros

The people on the front lines are good people who know the business well. The pay is OK.

Cons

Lack of leadership. Sweatshop tactics. Declining moral. Benefits slowly disappearing. You are just a number in a factory environment. Most Executives come from companies that have already been driven into bankruptcy, by them. Promotions come to the people who are willing to work the most for the least amount of pay. Expect your boss to be young and inexperienced. Executives are from the 'good ol boy' network. (By that I mean they all know each other from previous employers.)

Advice to Senior Management

Show your people some, just a little, respect. Ask for some advice. Collecting a fat paycheck and pretending to know what you are doing is not going to be enough. Try working as many hours as the people you are leading (or not leading).