Toxic environment and culture of fear at the Toronto office! - Admissions Coordinator 2U Employee Review

1.0
2 Nov 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Absolutely nothing positive to say about my experience.

Cons

I worked at 2U as an Admissions Coordinator for several months. It was the worst professional experience of my career! • In the few months I worked at 2U, I saw 8 employees quit or get fired. An average of 2 per month. People are in fear of their job! • Admissions is made to feel horrible when they don't hit their enrolment numbers. Calls are recorded and played back to the entire office and advisors are singled out and criticized in front of everyone. • We were micromanaged and treated like children. We were also forced to attend multiple review meetings each week. During these meetings we were asked to explain what we are doing right down to the minute. • There is no HR at the Toronto office. HR is entirely outsourced to a 3rd party. They are never at the office, and they have not been present for any firings. • The office itself is terrible. The carpets are dirty, bathrooms are disgusting, and the office is right above a children's daycare. The noise is really annoying. We are also forced to clean because Trilogy is too cheap to hire a cleaning crew. • 2U let go of 67 people last month, and there is talk of more layoffs. • The Toronto 2U team is treated like an afterthought. The Toronto team doesn't enjoy the same advantages as the American teams like tuition reimbursement, snacks, matching contributions, travel reimbursement, and other perks. • There was no handbook for the first few months of opening, so company policies were handled by word of mouth or email. Several people were fired during this time, without understanding the rules and guidelines. • Canada's regulations are not followed. We were expected to work statutory holidays without receiving holiday pay. 2U should be reported to the labour board.

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2U Response
6y
Employee feedback is important to hear, and we thank you for sharing. Your insights into some of our growing pains, especially as we become a global organization, are valuable to understanding the areas we need to continue to focus on. We’re growing quickly, revealing areas we need to focus on, and we are continually making improvements for our employees, our university partners, and their students. One example is a required training curriculum for all people managers at every level, covering comprehensive leadership skills, including new employee onboarding and training. We believe that hands-on training is key to developing our employees and we take our relationships and communications with our students very seriously. To help, we record calls with students, like other companies, as a way to help us continue to improve and provide our students with the best level of service. As a global company, we take pride in ensuring that all employees are treated equally and this includes benefits. It is a priority of ours as an organization to offer benefits packages that are competitive relative to the market of the specific country. Laws vary from country to country and we acknowledge that regulations around certain benefits like tuition reimbursement are quite complex. It is for this reason that, as a new employer in the country, we do outsource HR in Canada to ensure that we are abiding by all Canadian laws. Our overall benefits package is above average for the Toronto area and employees receive all Canadian national holidays and some Ontario-specific holidays. We take pride in all of our offices, especially our newest location in Toronto, and this includes office cleanliness. Our office does employee a daily cleaning service, but we ask our employees to be respectful of the space. The Toronto office is brand new, and while acknowledge that we do have younger neighbors who at times can be louder than others, employees have not stated that the noise impacts their productivity. As we grow, this will continue to be a top priority because employee development and growth is the heart of our organization and the linchpin to our future success. While you are no longer with 2U, we value your feedback and we would like to speak to you about your experience. Please reach out to feedback@2U.com and reference "my Glassdoor review" so we can talk.

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