Pros
Everyone below management is generally very nice, authentic, helpful, and funny.
Cons
1. Staff turnover is extremely high. Within five months, six staff members had left across the ANZ offices. In a larger organisation of thousands, this would not be odd or strange. But for an organisation of (roughly) 50 people, that's a red flag. 2. There is a huge discrepancy in tenure between the senior management and everyone else- with the former having people who've been there for anywhere between 5 and 25 years, and the latter not much longer than a year and a half. 3. HR reports directly to the MD, which creates obvious problems if complaints are made towards the MD. Otherwise, the HR team is fabulous and are wonderful personalities and worth getting to know. But their reporting line (obviously out of their control) is ethically questionable. (HR should not report to the head of a company, as this creates potential issues with accountability and problem resolution.) 4. The Managing Director...there are no words. He has publicly used language that is inappropriate in this day and age - including referring to several staff members with inappropriate slang used to describe part of a woman's body, and has openly threatened to crucify two staff members. He is frequently prone to yelling, mood swings, and making unrealistic demands whilst being fiscally conservative and seemingly does not like hearing critical feedback about his behaviour. MD regularly displays, in short, rude and bullying behavior. 5. Company culture is extremely reactive, rather than responsive, which makes it hard to plan properly. If you're accustomed to an agile workplace that has regulars scrums and is culturally horizontal, you will struggle here. 6. There is no onboarding, no training, and little to no documentation. All the systems, relationships, how things work, all need to be learned on the go. 7. Due to the reactive nature of the business, where social media is involved, senior management obsesses over vanity metrics (e.g., posting before the competition on LinkedIn) rather than intelligent social media strategy, and doesn't take advantage of the many platforms available and refuses to hire a social media strategist/marketer. 8. There have been several instances of trying to market the company as a "great place to work", which would ring false given the company's poor management style, toxic culture, and unwillingness to work smarter. 9. Senior management does not like hybridisation. While working from home can be done, any request to do so will be met with the demand of a list laying out what you're going to do, and when. (Oddly, whenever senior management work from home, no questions are asked.) 10. Staff are expected to be onsite, and due to the cramped offices and large number of hires, interruptions are a constant - which reduces productivity and results in broken concentration and focus. (Again: the staff are all lovely, and it's understandable that post-Covid people really want to have meaningful personal interactions, but in such a small space, this has obvious downsides.) 11. Despite having modern day tools like Microsoft Teams, Trello, and Asana, staff fail to use these tools, and rely on email as a workflow management tool and are slow to answer queries made in Teams chats. This can be extremely frustrating for anyone accustomed to having used tools like Slack. 12. It's a very male-dominated industry with a work culture that's 20+ years out of date, and can (and has) resulted in the occasional ableist, sexist, or homophobic comment. 13. Staff are overworked, underpaid, and it is not uncommon for staff members - especially product managers - to be handed multiple tasks by senior management that are contradictory and create needless confusion and stress. 14. Project management skills will be of no use here and will be wasted here. 15. Many teams are siloed and need to have regular check-ins to ensure all tasks, projects, expectations, and timelines are in sync. The MD frequently complains (i.e. yells) about how "no one talks to one another", but does nothing to understand why, doesn't seek to help, or bring teams together to enable better communication. 16. A company's culture is set by the people at the top. And the people at the top are mired in old school management styles and behaviour that will not help them succeed in 2022 and beyond. 17. The organisation claims it's focused on helping society become an All Electric Society, yet forces staff to be on site (the majority of staff drive to the office) because it doesn't like having people work from home. The message management seeks to convey is incongruent with what it actually practices. 18. Management frequently change its minds, particularly if the MD takes a certain position. This results in tasks changing midway through execution, scrapping certain tasks, and in some instances, being accused of "one-dimensional thinking" - as has been the instance when preparing a task in accordance with the instructions given.