Not a professional company - Media Assistant Odex Employee Review

Colleagues are generally really nice and very helpful. If you are a fresh grad interested in the local media industry, this may be a good place to gain exposure. But this is a very minimal pro - the cons definitely outweigh any benefits of this pro and there are many other places to gain exposure.

They hire fresh grads almost exclusively for obvious reasons - fresh grads come at a much lower cost and are generally more easily exploitable because gaining exposure is usually still a priority at this point of their career. Lack of professionalism and respect for boundaries: the company is a family business which explains this culture. When any issues or mistakes crop up the priority is usually not to fix the problem but to assign blame. They make offhand out-of-pocket comments about employees' appearances and lifestyle habits which is not only unprofessional but also creepy. Also say a lot of misogynistic, racist and elitist stuff. These comments are usually made as their idea of a joke so the sense of humour is questionable. They will throw out the "we are a family" line without any self-awareness about how much of a red flag buzzword that has become. They take non-ironic pride in what they call "suffering together" even though everyone is suffering together at drastically different pay grades, And the lower your pay grade the more you will suffer. Micromanaging: management takes their work seriously because they will indeed manage you, Right down to the exact timings within which your 1 hour lunch break should fall (11.30am-1.30pm, If you exceed the timing by even 2 minutes expect to receive a text as a gentle reminder), Which toilet you're allowed to use (going to the toilet on another floor of the building is frowned upon), Who you go to the water dispenser with (there are 2 separate office units and the water dispenser is only present in one), Who you eat lunch with (employees were told not to eat lunch altogether as a group because there supposingly has to be at least 1 person left in office to pick up any lunchtime deliveries). CCTVs are used to monitor and surveil employees. Overworked, underpaid: there is no OT pay. You are allowed to make claims for transport and dinner if you OT but only past 9pm. Some employees have had to OT till 11pm and close to 12am. Because of this the other employees were told to stay later instead of leaving on time to keep up appearances of not slacking off (they will make things difficult for you if you consistently leave on time.) Not sure where the employee number on this page came from (they do have a history of manufacturing these numbers presumably to impress partners and clients) but there were at most 12-15 full-time employees at any point in time and they are very against increasing headcount even though workload is insane. The lack of manpower will ensure you do things way out of your job scope like involvement in various events including a dinner party held for business partners at the end of the year. You will be required to do menial tasks like wash and dry wine glasses. They will also prevent you from taking leave at the end of the year because they consider it their busy period. Bonuses are given on a discretionary basis depending on how much of your life you are willing to sell. Increments are few and far between. It also usually does not commensurate with the accompanying increase in workload (e.g. offer you $100-$300 increment and tell you to expect more responsibilities and OT work). There is no health insurance or dental benefits. They offer 12 days of leave as a base with a 1 day increase for every year you work with the company. Calculativeness and favouritism: you will be questioned about your claims if they exceed an (unspoken) threshold. If you have shown that you are not willing to give up everything in your life for the company - be prepared to be treated differently including having your claims processed much slower, getting excluded from company meals, and having management be actively hostile towards you during appraisals. Management will also talk behind the backs of junior colleagues to other junior colleagues. Lack of growth and development: the pro mentioned was that there is exposure but the company is not sincerely invested in the professional growth and development of their employees. They often make promises about upskilling courses or training they potentially want to send you for and those will not materialise. The main aim is to maximise your workload while figuring out how little they can pay you. Employees are also generally too overworked to think about anything else but surviving the next day. The pay sometimes comes in a few days late, and there were several months where payslips were not issued. There were also instances where leave was deducted wrongly. Most employees do not leave on a good note and turnover rate is relatively high. They attempted to retain one of the employees who quit using the employee's good relationship with their colleagues as a form of emotional manipulation. Management is also unreceptive to feedback. If you attempt to give any they will either gaslight you or talk about a whole other bunch of irrelevant stuff as distraction and your feedback will be forgotten and left in the dust. Every review on this page is pretty much spot-on. Definitely enter at your own risk!

Good place for juniors to develop

going home late sometimes even till 8:00 pm