And this is where the horror begins.
* There is hardly any management/administration/leadership to speak of. The company pretends to have a flat structure but it does not.
A lot of the things that are going so wrong in this company devolve from this point. Everything and everyone is micro-managed from the top (though team leads suffer most from this).
* The sales team was actively spied on, all of their emails were read and monitored
Management also sometimes barged into phone conferences with prospective or existing clients or forcefully invited themselves to face to face meetings. THIS is the level of micro-management and lack of trust that we are talking about. A special warning for sales people thinking about a job there.
* This company has no visibility into its finances, no detailed expense tracking, has never done a market or feasibility study for a new product, etc.
With all that micro-managing, the one domain that actually needed ANY kind of managing, the company finances, was constantly and completely ignored. And as a result the company had to recently make redundant a THIRD of its staff after realising they couldn't afford to pay people anymore and this only a few months after making several new hires!! Good thing they invested in that big expensive air circulation system that was about as efficient at cooling the office as the company was at managing its finances though.
* The company (at the time of this being written) is NOT growing, much less so rapidly. It just fired (made redundant in newspeak) a third of its staff. Not. Growing. Not even close.
* You will be told that "the company cares about its people" - DO NOT BELIEVE THIS
Management has in the past TWICE refused to give employees references for a new position because they wanted to force them to stay. This love of staff includes firing people just before Christmas, because hohoho, who doesn't love getting fired for the holidays. When they fired a third of the company recently, they didn't even get a chat to humanely explain what was going on - on the day the decision was made they were literally kicked out of the office at 5:30 with a handshake and all of our things. The company cares about the company.
* There is no vision, no company goals, no culture, NOTHING.
The only goal the company has _ever_ had, is 40% growth in revenue. That's it. Nothing else, zero. There's minimal planning, everything is an emergency and if anyone tells you that you will be sharing in the decision-making, laugh hard, because it's the best joke ever told. If you want to be motivated, go elsewhere.
* The pay is similarly not spectacular and there are almost no benefits to speak of
* Very few opportunities for career progression, salary reviews are often forgotten about or ignored (intentionally or not)
* The one big plus at this company was the fantastic people working there, but the way things are going most if not all of them will be gone soon
PS: This isn't a bitter employee review, it's just the truth and it needs to be told. It's a miracle this company does as well as it does and I attribute most of that success to its very dedicated and talented staff.
