Toxic culture and unstable leadership overshadow Santa Cruz location - Energy Team Ecology Action Employee Review

Ecology Action is full of planet-passionate people working tirelessly to solve carbon reduction across the highest emitting sectors. It feels incredible to have a career that brings such value and lasting impact, and nearly all employees at EA share in this mission and truly take it to heart. I work on a team that puts their people above productivity, resulting in incredible culture, work-life balance, and having genuine fun at work. Our shared leadership model results in total trust, a psychologically safe environment, and authenticity in how each of us shows up.

Teams and business units can be siloed leading to some disparate functions, and accountability to software, policies and procedures can be lacking-- but the organization is actively working on this.

The vast majority of people working at the company are wonderful and are working very hard for towards the mission of sustainability.

Some people in upper management are toxic, and the CEO is isolated from how lower positions are managed by these people. The CEO is also conflict averse and ignores personality problems to the point that employees leave the company because nothing is done to address the toxic environment. Only the upper management opinions are listened to, meaning that even though many people have complained to HR about the toxic work environment, nothing is done to correct the bad behavior. I have witnessed other employees and was subject to being yelled at and devalued frequently. Individual opinions are messaged to employees as being encouraged, but if the opinion is in contrast to the manager's opinion, you are deemed to be a negative employee that is a problem and can't be managed. In addition to toxic management, there is a HUGE difference in salaries between the different departments which creates animosity between the teams. Community Programs employees make less than half of what the Energy Efficiency Programs employees make, and work just as hard.