GfK Reviews

In a nutshell, this company doesn't care about people (employees and customers). I read a Glassdoor article titled, "7 Types of Companies You Should Never Work For" and GfK meets almost every one of these types - high turnover, poor company culture, top heavy business, perpetual promiser, stagnator, and directionless ship High turnover - half of my team has recently left the company and they can't backfill them fast enough. They are losing all of that institutional knowledge and the remaining team is desperately understaffed and under-resourced. The leadership's response is to blame the people that left. Culture - the team culture is dictated by our senior leader, who is the most disrespectful and unprofessional person I have ever met. The whole team walks on eggshells wondering when the next tantrum is coming and who's going to be the next punching bag. She consistently bad mouths customers and employees, is extremely two-faced and lashes out at people. She leads a global team and yet somehow micromanages every single person on the team. Other leaders on the team are too scared to stand up to her and support their reports. When voicing my concerns, I've been told "that's just how she is" - this defines our team culture. Multiple people have left due to her behavior. Top heavy business - 1/3 of the team are executive level leadership, and the rest are individual contributors. I report up to multiple executives - why is there no middle management? I am responsible to all of them and to do all their bidding, and yet none of them are responsible to me. I get little to no mentorship or support and am constantly pulled in different directions. Perpetual promiser - I was promised a raise and a promotion and therefore given a lot more responsibility, but told many excuses like needing to wait for budgeting or timing, etc. It's been months and NO raise and promotion is in sight. I have lost all faith and trust in this company. I'm certain others in our team have heard these empty promises to keep everyone from jumping ship. This applies to customers as well. This is a sales-driven company, and leaders will do and say anything to land a deal. The team is understaffed and our processes are broken, and I would be concerned about what GfK is actually capable of delivering. Garbage in, garbage out. Stagnant - there are very few growth or learning opportunities here. My only option is looking into GfK's e-learning community, but it's self service, hard to navigate, and essentially just reading outdated slides. The whole team is so understaffed that there is just no time or room for growth - only just enough time to try to put out fires and get to the next day. Directionless - self explanatory. If you're looking for a successful, mission-driven company, this isn't it. If you ask anyone on the team what GfK's mission or values are, you would just get blank stares.

GfK is in crisis. Turnover is insanely high, because good people are recruited, but as soon as they challenge certain members of the Exec, they are blacklisted and their card is marked. You will only advance at GfK if you are a “yes man” / “yes woman”, but what kind of life is that? Your opinion / ideas will only be taken seriously if you are of a more senior grade than the colleague you are providing an opinion to. Ridiculous!