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BluShark Digital

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4 reviews
5.0
13 Mar 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Reliable work environment - Constantly learning about digital marketing - Enviable work-from-home format - Great 1:1 communication with supervisors

Cons

- You must get familiar with tools like "Worknsap" - If you live in Latin America, you must create an American bank account that could rest you a fee from your monthly payment

5.0
28 May 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You learn a lot about SEO, which is a really marketable skill going into the marketing industry Friendly environment with supervisors who are always willing to help

Cons

Workplace environment can be a bit too casual at times

1.0
15 Mar 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

People on the bottom of the food chain are genuine and helpful. The office itself is also nice, though I wouldn't recommend going in to work if you don't have to.

Cons

First, having a "family-like" dynamic at any business is a red flag, and BSD is an excellent example of how toxic this type of community can be. If you're a quiet worker, if you don't stay to work or hang out *after close of business (which is 9-6 already)*, if you don't actively participate in mandatory OR optional meetings/events, you are likely to get disciplined. Supervisors often cite other reasons that you're being reprimanded, but rarely with just cause. Second, you might not get any negative comments about your work/critiques as an employee in writing (even for performance reviews), but being reprimanded over Zoom calls is very common. You might look great on paper but actually be on a probationary period; their motive for this is beyond me, but prepare to get blindsided if it seems like it's been too quiet. At the beginning of my time at BSD, I thought things were going well, even though I didn't have any type of mentor past 2ish months (it's supposed to be 3 months in training). Apparently, this is not supposed to be common, but I saw it with new-hires after me, as well. Pay is also substantially under industry rates, and it's nearly impossible to get a raise if you're not in the boss's pocket. Many employees across multiple teams had been at BSD for months/years without having a raise. Management will even tell you you're not qualified, citing again reasons that were not known until the meeting. If you are working remotely, you are also tracked through Worksnaps, which takes a screenshot every ten minutes and shows how productive you were during that time. However, there's also a requirement that you send everything you've worked on to supervisors at the end of the day, every day, and they track your day-to-day tasks in a Google Sheet that the entire team can see. You are permitted a one-hour lunch and a (shorter than 20 min) break here and there, but you have to let the team chat know that you're leaving and when you're back. With ALL of these systems in place to track you every single day, it's easy to get burned out and stay there, especially because if any of their tracking methods show "signs of distraction" or low productivity, you are likely to be disciplined. I also saw loyal, good employees who had been at BSD for years be gaslit, berated, and even fired because they questioned the ethics/practices of leadership. An employee might be on good terms one hour, on egg shells the next. And when you meet with a supervisor to ask where you're at, how you're actually doing, you don't get straight answers, just "we think you *could* have a bright future here if you're willing to put in the work." I've been in the service industry, have worked at call centers, etc. This job was by far the worst I've ever been in. And I really tried to make it. There's a better position out there that you'll actually feel like a person in. Don't bother trying to make it at BSD.

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BluShark Digital Response
3y
Thank you for being part of the team at BluShark. We're disappointed to hear that you weren't satisfied with our company culture. We truly pride ourselves on being a supportive community of professionals dedicated to helping our clients, small businesses grow their online presence. We don't require that team members attend after-hours events but instead offer it as an opportunity for those who would like to attend - completely optionally. We never have and will never reprimand someone for not attending events outside of work hours. When we look for engagement in team members, we do not cite being available after work hours as a reason. Instead, we're looking for team members to interact and be engaged in team huddles, meetings, and training and take an ownership mentality over their work. Our performance reviews are conducted through the 15Five platform, in which everything is documented so that you can see the feedback ahead of the meeting, and this document is used to guide the meeting so that there aren't any surprises. In addition to performance reviews, feedback regarding performance and issues are raised in biweekly and monthly meetings with management that are also documented. Upon review over the last two years, the average annual increase across the board for full-time team members has been upwards of 20% each year. We have eradicated worksnaps and do not use it for any full time team members and have never intended it to be an invasion of privacy. Rather, we, unfortunately, had to keep it much longer than we had ever intended to use it due to the false accusations of former employees. Since the time right after we moved to remote work in 2020, we have never brought up the activity index or issues in worksnaps to team members showing signs of distraction or low productivity, we utilize actual data regarding work product in order to talk through productivity issues rather than the worksnaps timer. We have also removed the chat in order to communicate when team members are away to again reinforce our trust.
1.0
23 Dec 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I'd be lying if I said anyhing good about this place!

Cons

BluShark Digital has one of the most toxic work environments I have ever seen! Managers are incredibly entitled and unprofessional, and more often than not act as hindrance to employees instead of being leaders. Supervisors are controlling, and constantly spouts verbal abuse towards everyone! HR couldn't care less about employees and would much rather fire people that have problems with the company instead of addressing the issues they have!

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