Do not work here - Anonymous employee eSquared Communication Consulting Employee Review

We read this review and wanted to comment on it as we always try to respond to these types of things. Part of the reason for this is that we know our current employees often read these and we want them to have a balanced perspective. This employee’s history at our company was a roller coaster for all involved, and while they brought value to the company for a long time, the end of that period and departure was not a smooth one for a number of reasons. Clearly they were extremely disenchanted with us as is evidenced by the comments they made, some of which we want to touch on here. We see this from time to time when a disgruntled employee chooses to excoriate us in social media with exaggerations of their subjective opinions. It was noteworthy that their repeated primary concern is apparently our choice to have a star wars themed training program with milestones represented by the lanyards. We do not see why that was such a negative thing in their eyes but they are entitled to their opinion. “Not having an HR department” -- we have already addressed this in prior responses. All of our employees know they have a safe route for escalation of HR issues. The concept that we micromanage is always a fine line and we admit at times it probably feels that way, but it also means those employees are getting instructed and trained. So, “yes” we will micromanage employees who are new or who are struggling, as this employee was near the end of their time here. The majority of our employees enjoy a tremendous amount of autonomy. Regarding going to bathroom – employees are adults and can go to the bathroom whenever they like. We have had issues in the past where certain employees were using it as a chance to have an elongated (30+ minute) break from work, which is unfortunate and awkward to deal with, but under no circumstance would we ever prevent an employee from having to go to the bathroom. We are perplexed by the language regarding discouraging of friendships, as we promote a family environment and team building. Yes there is a degree of space we encourage with managers socializing with their employees because it can exhibit or appear to exhibit favoritism e.g., “how come you went to Johnny’s home BBQ but not mine”. Regarding turnover, there is some truth to that but that needs some qualification: yes we have had turnover on one of the call center teams as is the industry standard, average tenure is lower than on other departments, but overall the company tenure is over 49 months, with several people here over a decade (and enjoying their 4 weeks of vacation). As a result of turnover for that team, we recently raised wages and added another week to our training program (which does indeed exist) and have already seen results. We also have streamlined our business rules and moved them to a very user friendly intranet with great results. Our company is absolutely replete with positive feedback, and to unilaterally state that there is none clearly shows that their statement is not to be taken seriously, so we will not address it further. This employee knows that these exaggerations are hurtful to the 100+ current employees who chose to work hard and bring a good attitude to their position here every day, and who want to stay positive and focused. As we mentioned above, part of the reason we ensure a response to these reviews is to remind not only the social media world and not only the potential new hires, but to remind our current employees that we care how they feel, how they are valued, how they are treated, that they are listened to and that their concerns are acted upon.