Smiling Mind Reviews

Terrible culture, claims to be a not for profit however everything is about money, management and CEO get paid a lot while other workers that actually do all the work get paid peanuts with no overtime. They fire people with no reason, make their position redundant and then bring in someone else to do the same job with a slightly different title. No benefits to working here, culture is toxic and riddled with anxiety. This place is run like a big corporate. Board don’t do anything helpful and the co founders don’t care, use Smiling Mind as an ego boost. Staff turnover is very high. Office is ugly and hard to work in. Not making the impact on the community they claim they are. They are desperate for corporate funding partnerships they over promise and can’t deliver.

Working here was a real low point in my career: I felt that leadership wanted everyone to act like robots and not think for themselves; they intensely micromanage their staff and Board/CEO gets involved in every decision. It was strange to have half the board and CEO on project related calls - just didn't understand the role of the board and governance. Also there's no sense that the 'mindfulness' and mental health they espouse is also for staff - the culture was very anxiety driven and toxic. Management and Board have "favourite" staff members who they invite out to private dinners and drinks, but not others, it's very unprofessional. I had a manager ask me to cc them in on every email I wrote at one point: that's deeply undermining and again, unprofessional. They espouse a happy/friendly/warm/calm exterior but beneath that is a very competitive, toxic culture. And they expect everyone to work 24/7 - I was scolded for not answering an email that came in on the weekend by 10am Monday morning. It's just a weird work culture. I notice they are always advertising roles at the moment: I would warn anyone considering applying that their culture is not what it seems on the surface. It's also a revolving door staff wise (people constantly leaving) and I can see why - many of us stay in touch and we all have similar stories. Beware.