Company is Creating a Culture of Burnout
Teams are asked to produce non-stop content and collateral materials catering to both lofty KPIs and also unplanned, ad hoc request from different teams and higher management at their discretion, without strategic planning on how these materials will cohesively integrate within the brand ethos, encompassing everything from content, brand voice, audience, and visual identity.
Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen
Because of a lack of alignment between multiple stakeholders, and a lack of a strategic plan when rolling out features, facts, data, etc., multiple client-facing teams have to constantly work and re-work deliverables on a tight turnaround, thus affecting the rest of the planned workflows and timelines. This has caused workers to work extensively after hours, even in cases of certain teammates working into the early hours of the morning. There is also the ask of constant input from other teams on different departments' work, creating what was once a single team-lead project to become a multi-team lead task. This causes a shift from the original direction, due to the input of other teams coming from a lack of specific experience on said subject matter, or misguided judgment. Upper leadership, however, encourages this behavior.
Lack of Professionalism when Addressing Workflows and Timelines
The unprofessional and unconstructive chastisement of leadership management for not completing work fast enough or having deliverables ready on a whim, even when the work is no longer under the control of a specific team, creates low morale in the said department members.
Favoritism Within the Team and Nepotism
Due to a handful of team members being family members of the higher leadership team, said members of the team have had more favoritism when it comes to upper management dealing with their instances of unprofessional behavior, including rude remarks to other team members, lack of conflict resolutions, and complete dismissal of other team members altogether.
Due to this ongoing behavior, there have been several goals that the department teams have not been able to reach, or have altogether dismissed, due to specific individuals reporting straight to the top leadership instead of engaging in conflict resolution and solutions as to how to best handle internal problems. Because of this, alignments on the brand identity, messaging, and audience have had increased roadblocks as a result.
Favoring “Optics” Over Results
Often higher leadership will ask all team members to perform in activities that would be deemed more professional for “optics”, but in reality do not help company productivity, and result in performative activities that take up time that could be used in more strategic planning. Examples of this are:
i. Weekly Happy Hours: While no one is “forced” to participate, the result of critiquing these activities results in internal gossip amongst leadership teams. This is highly inappropriate professional behavior.
ii. Exiting exactly at 5 PM (end of day): Team members have been chastised in the past for leaving on the dot.
iii. Keeping the lights off in the office: Team members have been chastised for keeping the lights off in the office in the past.
Lack of Professional Boundaries
While there is an HR team intact, company culture encourages or is ambivalent to open dating/relationships within the company, gossiping about other team members from higher leadership management, and all-around unprofessional behavior at times. Employees have also been asked at times to engage in work or behavior completely removed of their contract position, including performing manual labor.
Little to No Opportunity for Career Growth
The company offers little to no opportunity for growth within an individual contributor's career, no matter how valuable said contributor is. This is even more heightened when said contributor works on a WFH model since leadership does not believe that remote workers can lead teams successfully.
