GTB - Good Times Be-gone! - Anonymous employee GTB Employee Review

I drafted this months ago when Summer Fridays were stripped away from us and never had the time to actually post it. Now with the Company going from bad to worse I felt the timing was important. We are now an ad agency operating without a Chief Creative Director or a HR Director. Not a work environment that tells us our future is bright and we are secure in our jobs. I have lost all pride and enthusiasm I once felt being an employee here. “I have worked with J. Walter Thomson, Team Detroit and GTB collectively for 20 years. I have always said I love my job and I love my company but with the current direction the Company is taking I am no longer having a love affair with the Company. I had always felt we were in good hands and being steered in the right direction up until now. There is a management movement in play that is trying to change the culture of our company and it’s not for the better. The Company’s handling and execution of eliminating Summer Fridays was poorly executed on so many levels and has created the lowest employee morale I have seen since working here. Why would a Company want to take away a benefit that has been given to employees for nine-years that is a huge morale booster, improves the quality of employee’s life work balance and is used as a recruiting tool? HR used Summer Fridays when negotiating vacation time with potential new hires. Many people accepted a lesser amount of vacation days because they were told they would be getting seven Summer Fridays. We have a HR team that is non-responsive so anyone circling back to them to address this issue is getting the normal “no response.” When I told a friend that I lost my Summer Fridays their response was, “now you are just like everyone else.” Exactly! It was a benefit that made us special and one that indirectly made up for the low salaries and lack of pay increases. It is hard for me to comprehend Management wanting to take away something that makes employees “happy” and doesn’t cost them anything. They left people hanging with the announcement and created an atmosphere rampant with rumors. It was an insult to my intelligence to say it was due to parking lot matrix (parking lot not full @ 9:00am sharp) and that the client didn’t like it. When Management looked out the window at 9:00am and did not see a full parking lot did they also note all the people who start work before they even walk in the door, who work through their lunch hours, who are here long after 5:00pm, who travel on holidays and weekends, and who take work home with them. How do you work all that into the parking lot matrix? We had a Town Hall in May 2016 and were told by the CEO that we are the premier agency in all of the world and how great Ford was doing. He actually told us he loved us. Rah Rah Rah. Our reward…elimination of Summer Fridays.