Honest, Ethical, and Transparent - Account Manager Advanced Video Group (SC) Employee Review

From ownership, leadership, to new staff, all care to please clients and help one another. Positive culture. Leadership promotes work/life balance.

Travel can be more at times, tight deadlines with some clients and difficult to meet with troublesome technology at times

Ability to get AVIXA, Crestron, Biamp, and Extron certifications. Integrators have a shared sense of community because they all are misled by management equally. Dean, Brad, and Andrew are kind. Charles cleaning up every Friday will be the best part of your week if you get to see him.

Management tells you things that they know aren't going to happen. I only worked there for a year, when I interviewed I told AVG that I had two young kids and wouldn't be able to take the job if it meant I would be out of town. I got hired and got right to work on studying for my CTS in my free time while learning the job on the field. I was rough in the beginning but most of the staff have a "gate-keeper" attitude; not offering resources, I would later learn are available, to help me grow. I did my best to ask what was needed of me, even bringing two additional techs to the company. I was doing well, with great reviews and I worked to get my CTS in record time (for which I was given a minimal raise). Things changed for me when my wife gave birth. I knew that AVG wouldn't allow me to take parental leave time because a coworker told me he had to use his PTO. I didn't have all of my PTO because there were several days that AVG had no work for me to do and asked if I would like to take a paid day instead of sitting around the office without anything to do. My wife had an injury that made it hard for her to walk after having the baby and we needed two extra days, after my PTO had been used, for her to get back to feeling confident in taking care of our children. I told my PM that I would need those days but due to some confusion, I was called and told that I would be at risk of losing my job if I didn't come in. This crushed my wife and made it almost impossible to believe the notion that "family comes first" like the company likes to tell you. Upon returning, I wasn't needed. I sat in the warehouse for the rest of the week, cutting palettes and doing the work of the warehouse manager who wasn't too keen on doing his own work. Determined to not let AVG get me down, I powered through other certs and moved around teams and worked with service, all the while being misled about various promotions. There is no set structure or clear roadmap for promotion, and they are just now starting to train new employees. Meanwhile, one of the techs I brought on also had a baby and was sent to work out of town not too long after. At first, he didn't mind the extra money but when 5 days a week out of town began to cause stress and strain for his family, the tech was denied the ability to come back into town. It seemed as though they moved him onto a team with an older, grumpy tech as a way to get him to quit. I say that for two reasons: one, there had been an issue with the tech I brought in. He asked if his wife, daughter and dog could visit him while he was out of town. He was given permission but the integrators he was with came home a day early causing him to have to switch some plans around. The hotel staff tried to clean the room while he wasn't there and the dog was and that became an issue. An issue that I believe could have been communicated through but instead seemed to be a reason for retribution. The second reason I believe this was intentional is because the person who quit before him was with the same older tech, and they eventually placed me on the team with the older tech as well. Most of the lead techs could use leadership training. They often lack basic skills like showing others how to do things or taking care of themselves so they can show up for others. I began to look for another job after a while but the final straw came when I talked to the District Manager about the problems teams seemed to be having and how they could improve. He asked me if I wanted to be a lead tech, seemingly suggesting that would be possible. Instead, I was sent out of town, the thing I originally told them I wouldn't take the job if it required. It took at toll on my family and I had to leave.