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      ELM Learning

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      ELM Learning reviews

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      4.1

      78% would recommend to a friend

      (27 total reviews)

      Andrew Fayad

      82% approve of CEO

      74% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      4.0

      Culture & values

      4.0

      Work/Life balance

      4.0

      Senior management

      4.0

      Career opportunities

      3.8

      Diversity & inclusion

      3.8

      Compensation and benefits

      ELM Learning has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 27 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The ELM Learning employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      27 reviews
      1.0
      May 22, 2016

      Truly awful leadership. Negative working environment

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      The office is located close to downtown near Balboa Park and has some nice furnishings. The Project Managers are lovely people and so are the designers.

      Cons

      Leadership is basically incompetent. Imagine a training and development company that can't even fix their own training issues. The founder is a reprehensible person who is dishonest, rude and takes a hands off approach to the work. He doesn't pay attention or involve himself at the start of projects to guide it but has no qualms about stepping in at the end to denigrate your efforts. He is dishonest, I have caught him in lies quite a few times and he likes to pretend that he has some special knowledge that on closer inspection doesn't hold up. It's astounding that he talks of neurolearning as though he holds some secret cutting edge knowledge but nobody at the company has any idea what he's talking about. An instructional designer that can't explain his own ideas? Even if you look at the website they claim that they use UX design practices while violating principles of good interface design right on the home page. The company has no vision at all, they are just scrambling from mismanaged project to mismanaged project and leaving a series of unhappy clients in their wake. All the design staff are overworked and the client relationships are all mismanaged because the founder doesn't know what he is doing at all. I'm leaving this review because I can't believe there were good reviews before, it doesn't match the reality of this crappy company at all. The reviews here made me think it was a good place to work. Quite the opposite experience.

      1.0
      Sep 17, 2016

      Unprofessional

      Contract illustrator
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      They're prompt at responding when they need you, and pretty open about how you go about styling and formatting what you send over. They didn't specify that I had to use a specific program to do the designing in. They give you time, but they don't mention exact start dates. Although, they did not respond back to me about job possibilities, about six months later, which is fine, but may be a con?

      Cons

      If you're going to be contracted as a freelance artist or designer here. Just don't. They're shady. I was told I would get paid for a background design, low behold, it's been days since I last heard from them, about two weeks. I gave a quick little email back asking about progress and time, but haven't heard anything back. If it was going to take time for their client to respond back about the project, the least that the producer should do is tell me, "Well, we haven't heard back from the client yet, so we can't tell you what scheduling will be like." Or even, "The client has decided to go in another route, so we'll be moving on with another designer." Instead of making me wait days without a response. That is very unprofessional if you are contacting a freelancer who has all ready just sent in art samples and expecting a reply back. Also, totally did not get paid for my background I sent in (that was promised). Did I just do spec work and not realize? I was waiting for the contract to be discussed right afterward, but it never got to that point.... So I guess don't expect great pay or any pay? Note to self, always initiate a contract before doing *any* work. Lesson learned. Shady, so so shady. Make sure to watermark all your pieces you submit if you do decide to give them a shot. But it won't matter because they make you sign an NDA because of the type of jobs and clients they work with, will not allow you to put it into your portfolio. Talk about a killjoy for designers.

      avatar
      ELM Learning Response
      9y
      We'd like to start by offering an apology for delayed follow-up. Working with so many clients, we get very busy at time, and if there was a delay in communication then we definitely apologize for that. Our work is custom, so timelines are constantly shifting around, and sometimes it is difficult to pinpoint the start of a project. We have been implementing new processes this year for better contractor communications to address these situations. Our company makes it priority to treat our artists right, as many of our staff were once freelance artists, so we actually pay very quickly compared to most companies out there. If you feel you were not compensated fairly please submit (or re-submit) you invoice so we can take a look. We also understand that artists want to show off their work and that their portfolio is their resume, however since our projects are for internal training purposes information is often sensitive and proprietary, so we do ask our artists now to share this work publicly to adhere to our client's guidelines and agreements.
      1.0
      Jun 6, 2019

      Sorry, money can't buy competence

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      -Incredible base team of talented, hardworking people -Flexible work schedule -Work/life balance

      Cons

      Company pretty much defines nepotism: Pops bought a company then put his spoiled and extremely inexperienced 20-something-year-old son and his buddy in charge as CEO & President. -Despite all the talent, the "leadership" continues to run it into the ground because of the lack of experience or any real genuine interest in what the company does. When the going gets tough they direct blame on anyone but themselves so its pretty much a revolving door of hires and fires . -Zero development or training support: ironic for a LEARNING company. Don't expect your managers to help you do anything, they're too busy trying to fix what leadership can't or don't have the interest to -Culture is disjointed and pretty much non-existent, which happens when you run your people and their trust into the ground. - All value and emphasis, oh yes, and incentives goes to sales who never actually really seem to know what we do. Oh yeah, by the way, the sales team is also led by the CEO who's either AWOL or jetsetting off to Brazil or Greece (surprise) - They'll eat you up and spit you out. Anyone who ever really cared about the company or had the most talent has checked out, been exhausted beyond recovery, or driven out. - They love their flashy corporate catchphrases (Transparency! Radical candor!) But can't seem to actually put any of it into positive action or handle the truth. -Zero consistency. Always a new, short-lived "business flavor" of the week. - Zero profitability in its 5+ years, but that doesn't seem to change the spending on salaries for people who don't contribute meaningfully or expensive travel for certain special people (aka the class clown they pay top dollar to be the face of the company and contributes to no tangible outcomes)

      avatar
      ELM Learning Response
      6y
      The importance of providing feedback is to share concerns and help improve organizations through radical candor. Providing truths in a professional and compassionate manner. As a company, and as leaders we are always willing to listen to concerns and criticisms. As leaders it is also our responsibility to dig through the aggressive anger in some messages to find the truth. ELM was purchased by five owners including myself and my son. Over the past five years we have invested in the start up and in the building of ELM. The CEO does not oversee sales, we have had a sales director for the past year. Our sales team pay is similar to industry standards and their training is very organized and involves the development team through hands on learning. As with all start up companies we have had to continually develop our training programs each year. Last year we implemented our Guidance System which provides for all positions, on-boarding, training, and management development. On a monthly basis we conduct our “All Hands” meetings to provide open discussions and share information to ELM in all three cities. We are proud to say that a lot of our team members have taken great vacations to all parts of the world including, Australia, Africa, South America, Europe, etc. It is unfortunate that when owners take vacations it is “jet setting.” I believe we all would agree that everyone deserves a work life balance. Our managers have worked hard to create the organization we have today. The strain of scaling a company has been recognized and this spring we have added an industry experienced Vice President of Operations in San Diego to help with the increasing business demands. We find the name calling “class clown” to be a personal attack. We do not have class clowns, everyone has value in our organization including the author of this posting.
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      Glassdoor has 44 ELM Learning reviews submitted anonymously by ELM Learning employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if ELM Learning is right for you.