Stay Away - Anonymous employee CommonPlaces Employee Review

1.0
Sep 14, 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great location, cool building and office, the VP of Operations is the unsung star of the company. Coffee is free (when they remember to order it). There are flex Fridays, but many places offer that.

Cons

Company is on life support, toxic atmosphere as far as company culture, a constantly shifting game plan. They tell clients that they don't hire contractors, but they do. Only one third of the management team has the respect of the rest of the staff. Many of the good reviews for the company posted here were written by employees who were told to write them. The majority of employees are looking for work elsewhere.

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CommonPlaces Response
10y
Thank you for your kind comments on our cool office, coffee, Flex Fridays and yes Ricco is a Rock Star. We value your opinion and we are sorry to hear that you have such feelings toward our company. We respect the opinions of all employees and prior employees. We encourage employees to share their experiences on Glassdoor, but have never told anyone what to write or reviewed what they write prior to publishing. CommonPlaces encourages its employees to express their opinions freely. We want people who work for us to be fully engaged while here. That means making CommonPlaces a better place for both our employees and customers. As a leadership team, Mike, Kendra and I commit ourselves to being better every day. We’ve hired a Business Manager to take over Human Resources and Finance. Having a professional dedicated to the health and well being our employees has been beneficial to the entire team. One of her top priorities is to make sure the San Francisco Bay coffee is always in supply. For the past year our main focus has been on company transparency; we have opened our books and reports and discussed what is working and what is not. When something is not working, we put a plan in place to change our course. We strongly believe these changes have been for the better. We have a wonderful network of dedicated contractors who work on various projects and have been trained and educated on our best practices. We are very open and honest with our customers when it comes to using contractors, which is outlined in all of our contractual agreements. Most importantly, CommonPlaces is a profitable, healthy agency. We are constantly looking to hire talented and motivated individuals to join our team.

Explore other reviews about CommonPlaces

5.0
Jan 18, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

My coworkers were both skilled and good to work with. Working on a team focused on producing good work is great. Over the years, I have recommended to others to leverage CommonPlaces for our technology skills. And I have recommended others apply to work at CommonPlaces, because I enjoy working here.

Cons

There are ups and downs on the todo list. I prefer having a constant of billable work to pull from. With CommonPlaces, I can find myself overflowing for 6 months, but then a lowell hits. This is when I focus on non-billable projects, but it affects metrics.

4.0
Oct 22, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Commonplaces was a place where I learned and grew as a developer more than any other position that I had. The dev team was brilliant and eager to help out, and were open to ideas and suggestions. The management team was understanding and patient, and provided clear objectives. Excellence was rewarded, and failures were met with understanding and help. I could be honest with the management without any flak, even when I offered constructive criticism of the leadership. I felt appreciated and understood. It was a fun environment, with nerf dart wars, a mini basketball hoop, and the ability to take every other Friday off ("flex fridays") if you got your hours in. The management proactively asked the team for their input, and presented many opportunities to present it. It is a team of highly skilled professionals in a relaxed, casual environment. I'm sure that many people reading this will consider it a dream job.

Cons

While the majority of the work was fulfilling, and an appropriate level of challenge, I was overwhelmed with a couple projects that were, in retrospect, beyond my organizational skills as a project manager. However, I can't really blame them for this, other than giving me too much freedom and autonomy, and I consider this to be my responsibility, as I was over-confident at the beginning, and a series of personal events negatively effected my performance, which eventually led to a burn-out. Had this series of personal events not happened, there is no doubt that I would still be happily working there.

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