SCORCH Reviews

Periods of high volume of work or low volume - very little happy medium, but that's agency life!

While this agency has potential to do great things and bring in great clients, the relationship established with it's clients and employees is something I firmly disagree agree with. The expectation is to take a project the same day it is due back to the client. From my experience, this would fall under the category of a "fire drill" in the agency world, but this is everyday practice for Scorch. A classic day looks like: writer submitting copy or edits for copy, development and production for design happens afterwards or simultaneously, submission of review by the creative team, content team, and proof readers, then submission from account manager to the client. This is in one day typically. If there is pushback on timelines to the client, then creative does not see it. Whether it's a large project or small, it's due back the same day with the expectation that if you need to work late each night to do it, then you work late. Some times the team does not have all of the information required to begin a project and guessing is necessary. The repeated phrase you hear is "they are hiring more people to help, work will slow down eventually", but the work continues to come through at the same speed. There is a high turnover rate I would assume due to lack of support, leadership, and needs of it's employees. A good company shows it's support to it's employees as well as to it's clients equally as both are important. Good mental health, good relationship with the company, good relationship with the team, all very important in running any size of a business. You will also be required to report time daily for everything you work on in 15 minute increments from 27 hours to over 40 hours. If you want a raise or annual review, you must take the initiative to set one up, it is not automatic. And there is no annual increase in salary to reflect inflation. Everything is rush, work takes precedent over personal life. When I asked for two days off for bereavement, all projects from me were up to date and ready for the client. Instead of getting the time off that was requested and approved, I spent six hours working that day, getting pinged about project status updates and where things were (this agency is disorganized), because work takes priority over personal life. In my time of working at Scorch, there have been less than a handful of PoC employed. There is a diversity and inclusion leader, that person is white. Major social issues of 2020 were not discussed by the company nor of how they take a stance in the matter. All member meetings are discussions of how much money the company can make for the fiscal year, the forecast, just a lot of money talk. Nothing on the relationship and engagement with the clients and minimal positive reinforcement to employees of their hard work and time. It feels more like a meeting for stakeholders and investors instead of company employees. Lastly, HR is the owner/founder/CEO's wife which I'm not sure is ethical when running a business. She is lovely but I can see employees not coming forward with issues in the work environment because of that relationship.