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Penguin Formula

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Penguin Formula Reviews

3.0

50% would recommend to a friend

(28 total reviews)

Rudolf Vriens

47% approve of CEO

38% positive business outlook

Penguin Formula has an employee rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars, based on 28 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Penguin Formula employee rating is 22% below average for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

28 reviews
1.0
19 Jun 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The only good thing about the company are the employees that struggle together .

Cons

The so called flexible work time is now only applied to the managers and there is a strict micro management of time. If you have a problem with your children or with your health you'll have problems. The whole company management is a joke, from CTO to CEO. There are a lot of useless internal projects to keep you occupied while they pretend to find nearshore or offshore clients. Also, all the employment contracts they propose damage the employee in some way. Since they monstly hire people from outside Portugal they ommit some informations that later damage the employees in some way. The best way to describe the company is "Bad decisions and terrible way dealing with people at it's finest".

avatar
Penguin Formula Response
6y
Like in any relationship, as we all know, a breakup is never easy. In these situations, emotions can speak louder and lead us to express ourselves in an excessive and untimely manner. All comments are respected with the conviction and, above all, with the awareness all that Penguin Formula has done and committed itself was to provide a good relationship with all its employees in an “open door” environment so that any situation could be debated. However, there are points that we must clarify to who consult this page. We try, as far as possible, to preserve a lasting relationship with our employees, for whom we have a deep respect. Are there any situations to improve? Most certainly there are, the company is the first to admit it. After all, like before mentioned, Penguin Formula is only 3 years old. We are faithful to our values and convictions, that we express in our commitment and dedication. We take pride in the exceptional work that is being developed by all, management team and employees. Every day we learn a little more and we do it together. We wish for understanding and discretion to those we also consider our family, even if we may be hurt. Respect and moderation have always characterized us. Nevertheless, there are situations that we care to clarify so that everyone can know from their own source and also, in a possible future, experience to live in first-hand what Penguin Formula is and does. Our head office schedule is a 9am to 6pm time schedule, with 1h for lunch and 30 min’ flexibility upon arriving and leaving hours (e.g. if you arrive by 8h30am, you are free to leave by 5h30pm). We do have a control access on our head office that, as of common knowledge, allows companies to comply with a lawful obligation of keeping an attendance registry of its employees. Since our core business model is related to Outplacements and Nearshore teams working for client’s projects, there are situations where our employees need to perform their job in our office, and not at home. These are client’s conditions that we must respect. So, as for not creating a differentiation between our employees, the home office is not defined as a rule. We don’t review ourselves in the type of company that doesn’t allow an employee to provide support to his/ her family or to be working from home in case of illness. The internal projects aim to create new products for the market and also to be used internally. In an IT environment where you need to act quickly and look for market necessities, it’s our vision that in the future we could provide more solutions for the market. Since the core business of the company is outplacement of specialized professionals in the IT field, we do everything we can to reduce the time our professionals are without a client project. Sometimes takes less and others more. We have sales teams and sales support that everyday strive to reach the best opportunities possible for our developers. If our professionals are allocated to a client, everyone is happy, after all it’s the core business of the company. There’s no logical explanation to keep our developers in internal projects just for the sake of it. Regarding to our contracts, and being truthful to the transparent company we aim to be, we currently display all our contract templates to any candidate at the offer stage, so they can be cleared regarding all doubts or questions that may arise, specially and precisely because the majority of our employees come from foreign countries.
1.0
30 Sept 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The only good thing in the company are the colleagues (developers), who are mostly nice and work well together

Cons

- The management is unbelievably dishonest; - Troubles receiving salary/benefits; - They never keep their promises; - Sales is very incompetent.

1.0
24 Jun 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Relaxed atmosphere, and modern office.

Cons

A completely unprofessional company, it hires people outside the European Union to take advantage of foreigners, because of the lack of knowledge on European legislation. It offers low salaries and does not instruct new members how to acquire the necessary documents in Portugal. The worst is when the employee is posted to another country. As foreigners do not know the laws, they abuse this to obtain advantages like not to offer documents necessary to work outside of Portugal, for example the document A1 (obligatory for this type of work). Total lack of commitment from the CEO, CFO and CTO, they just want to make a profit on top of employees at any cost.

avatar
Penguin Formula Response
6y
As mentioned on previous comments, like in any relationship, as we all know, a breakup is never easy. In these situations, emotions can speak louder and lead us to express ourselves in an excessive and untimely manner. All comments are respected with the conviction and, above all, with the awareness all that Penguin Formula has done and committed itself was to provide a good relationship with all its employees in an “open door” environment so that any situation could be debated. However, there are points that we must clarify to who consult this page. We try, as far as possible, to preserve a lasting relationship with our employees, for whom we have a deep respect. Are there any situations to improve? Most certainly there are, the company is the first to admit it. After all, like before mentioned, Penguin Formula is only 3 years old. We are faithful to our values and convictions, that we express in our commitment and dedication. We take pride in the exceptional work that is being developed by all, management team and employees. Every day we learn a little more and we do it together. We wish for understanding and discretion to those we also consider our family, even if we may be hurt. Respect and moderation have always characterized us. Nevertheless, there are situations that we care to clarify so that everyone can know from their own source and also, in a possible future, experience to live in first-hand what Penguin Formula is and does. About our contracts, and as per before mentioned, being truthful to the transparent company we aim to be, we display all our contract templates to any candidate at the offer stage, so they can be cleared regarding all doubts or questions that may arise, specially and precisely because the majority of our employees come from foreign countries. Mentioning we provide no support for our new joiners in terms of documentation is not accurate, as we even have a department created to provide all the practicalities related to documentation. Like indicated, we believe that is our part to provide support also to our employees life partners’ (and children) essential documentation. Still on the documentation topic, to state that the company does not assure A1 documents, which are essential to a secondment in a foreign country, it’s not correct as our seconded employees have currently their A1s emitted and on their possession. What could happen is that it could take some time when you need documentation from a Portuguese public organization. This response time is not controlled by the company, as you may understand.
Viewing 1 - 3 of 28 Reviews

Glassdoor has 34 Penguin Formula reviews submitted anonymously by Penguin Formula employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Penguin Formula is right for you.