Great work-life balance in a hybrid environment, but unclear promotions - Programmatic Operations Manager Cadent Employee Review

Probably the free snacks. And reminiscing about when all the cool people still worked here.

Leadership feels increasingly out of touch with both employee sentiment and what made this company successful in the first place. Management has openly expressed that they don't care if employees leave. Unfortunately, that mindset shows. Many of the company's most talented, experienced, and respected people have already exited, and more continue to do so. The return-to-office mandate ignores repeated employee feedback. Surveys have consistently shown that people value flexibility and don't want a blanket RTO policy, yet leadership appears determined to move forward regardless. The company continues to invest in large office spaces while forcing legacy Cadent and AdTheorent employees back into the office, undoing the culture, trust, and flexibility that teams spent years building. It increasingly feels like the RTO strategy is less about collaboration and more about driving voluntary attrition. The company's overall story and strategy remain difficult to understand. It feels like a "we do everything" company without a clear, cohesive vision that ties its products and acquisitions together. The acquisition strategy seems focused on accumulating businesses rather than thoughtfully integrating them, often resulting in the erosion of the very cultures and strengths that made those companies successful. At its core, the biggest issue is a growing disconnect between leadership and employees. People want to understand the vision, feel heard, and believe that leadership values both the business and its people. Right now, many employees don't feel any of those things.

Only pro is the actual staff themselves. Employees care and it is the only reason Cadent is floating.

Management is deluded. Leadership recently told employees that if they even tried to ask for more money that they wouldn’t get it and if they’re not ok with that then they are cool with people leaving. Hence why so many amazing people left within the last few months. Raises were terrible, promotions were a dime a dozen. Now they’re demanding people to come into the office 4 days a week. Culture at the top is just one big group of people all saying yes to each other and not once taking employee satisfaction into the equation. There is 0 transparency from all parties. No rhyme or reason to why certain goals are so high (and unachievable). HR continues to send out these nonsense employee engagement surveys and not take a single thing into consideration. They just dance around the point with a lot of corporate jargon and employees never see tangible actions being taken. Middle managers are clueless as well. They have no say or even understanding about why certain things are the way they are. When you have an actual problem or need something to be addressed, they do not help in the slightest. When raises/promotions came out earlier this year they already were prepared for backlash from employees about how terrible they were and knew there was going to be employee drop off but management didn’t care. Cadent wants to move into a video-only direction when a majority of their business is built on standard programmatic display campaigns. No idea how that will pan out. Either way, don’t work here. All the smart and good people from AdTheorent and some of the OG Cadent folks have bailed cause it is a sinking ship.