Toxic management, lack of trust and communication - Anonymous employee Otrium Employee Review

This company might come across as your typical startup with an approachable and inclusive culture, yet the reality is quite disappointing. Leadership, and especially the new People/HR management since January, has lacked any sort of tact and sensitivity in regards to people´s emotional well-being and concerns. Many of us were suddenly let go with little to no communication as to why this was happening. Trust was suddenly broken, communication is still nowhere to be found, and meanwhile, Leadership and HR simply acted like everything was fine and pushed us to go on with our tasks as if we aren´t going through an unbearable amount of stress, anxiety, and confusion. Not to mention how many of us slowly fell out of love with the company throughout these last months. So although when I first joined I really loved it there, I have only recently realized that what I perceived as a welcoming and vibrant company culture, was actually only because the employees working there are genuinely the most wonderful and nicest people you´ll meet. The same cannot be said about the Leadership and People/HR management teams. There is this sense of unrealistic positivity and an "everything is cool"-approach from their side at all times, yet meanwhile, most of us at Otrium were aware that something strange was going on, with people silently being let go from one day to the other (sometimes months before the end of their contracts) - and yes, we were silenced. Many of us were pretty much freaking out, wondering if we would be next, while leadership from the “People & Culture” team only communicated to us superficial slogans about “change” and “people first”. Again, I want to emphasize that the Leadership and People team never communicated anything nor had the sensitivity to listen to their employees´ concerns while this was happening. In fact, we were told we were the ones causing trouble for demanding better communication. After outlining this, I realize how baffling it is that the new management brands itself as "People first", and yet they haven´t figured out the importance of taking their employee's trust and emotional well-being seriously, with the respect we deserved. Let alone their complete incompetence in internal communication. Another review I read here, said that the new management was focused on imposing the measures they took at their previous company (I use “they” because a majority of the employees left in HR to this day, have been brought from said previous company, a clear example of how biased the new management is and how their approach relies on disregarding the existing culture at Otrium). It saddens me to say this, really, but Otrium is not a safe environment to work in at the moment, unless there is a serious change in the current company leadership and, especially, in the People/HR leadership.