It is common to not be told your commission until 3 weeks until after the month ends. This makes it very hard to budget for anything and causes a struggle.
Policies are made up on the spot without any communication or reason whatsoever. It's hard to get an answer as leads are never at their desk and everyone has a different answer that tries to help.
If you do something wrong, the response is that "everyone knows that" and you will be given a written warning if you a lucky. This is so wrong. No leads or managers stand up to the plate and educate what the policies are for the floor and what to do in one off situations that have cost many of us our jobs.
Spiff checks have gone from once a week to 2x a month. This is a step in the wrong direction as commission check can be wrong and you have to wait even longer for them to be corrected.
Income is seasonal here. 5-7k checks are common in May, June, July, August. Every other month, 2-3k checks are common for most on the floor.
Do to the seasonal income and logarithmic commission scale, a bad day will cripple your month. I've never been at a sales job where 1 bad day can cost you 25% of your monthly income.
The goal for February is 53 loans or about $2300 a month before taxes. Half of the team will be lower than this number. For the unfortunate ones that only hit 40 will be rewarded to an $800 check.
Commission plans are lowered in the peak part of the year during the summer. They should be adjusted in January each year for parity and clarity.
There have been no leads for the last 4 months, we cannot make any money without any leads, but yet Freedom keeps hiring for that 85k a year dream that they keep selling people.
If you are sick for 1 day, it will cost you $1000 due to the logarithmic commission structure. 40 loans (An average in December) pays about $800. 60 (an average in May) pays about $4000. Freedom does give you loans for vacation but has stipulations and pays you at the rate of the loans that you sold during the month, costing you thousands to take a week vacation. It would be much more fair to do the payouts of what you would actually end up at and that would end much of our frustration.
If you ever call in sick, don't work here, you will never make goal and will be fired in 4 months.
Freedom advertises 85k a year average, but they just lowered the commission plan about 1k a month less and you have to work 50+ hours to get it. Don't read earlier reviews about pay in F+ as it has just decreased recently. You will make most of your money in the summer and almost nothing throughout the rest of the year.
There is no "open door policy" if you try to talk to a Managers, there will be consequences. Everyone knows this and is afraid to stand up. I wish there was a lock box that went strait to the President or the owners.
The same 5 employees are favored by the managers
There is extreme pressure to work weekends by managers. They will literally ask you 4 times in a row after you reply no. Then they will ask you what you are doing this weekend and ask you to rearrange your plans. There is literally no regard for the heart.
The managers will dictate who you can go to lunch with. They will break up groups of individuals that go to lunch at the same time like a jealous lover. Morale has never been lower.
Expect to be yelled at if you talk to your neighbor for more than 30 seconds. I was told that Freedom won the best place to work for 2 years in a row in Phoenix...there is NO WAY that is happening again under this management.
In my interview I was told it was a 45 hour a week job, but if you don't work 50-55 hours, you may miss goal and be fired.
Performance write ups used to be 80% to goal instead of just missing goal by 1. This has lead to a decrease in the morale in F+ inbound. This is one of the single biggest problems with F+.
There has been a complete turnover of Leads in the last 6 months. It must be brutal to give up a 90-100k job. This means that there is no opportunity to move up in the company if the position to be promoted to is this bad.
Because of this, the new leads have very little experience and their training consists of "work more hours" or "get more apps" there is no training past Freedom's initial training (which is pretty good).
Sales force is always breaking and downtime is normal. Don't expect goals to change.
Out of all of the companies I have worked for, this Sales force has by far the most errors and no one does anything about them when reported.
Managers are trying to bring over the top reps from outbound to inbound to decrease the differences in pay between the two sides. This will result in lower pay for inbound as there has been parity adjustments between the two sides.
Freedom is a great company for any department except for F+. When I was new just a year ago I was proud to say that I worked for Freedom. Now if someone asks me, I just mumble "freedom" softly and won't be caught dead in my free Freedom Shirt.
So much money is being spent on a branding effort that if they just treated their employees right word would get out on it's own.
If you apply for Freedom Plus, ask what the turnover rate of the department is. Ask yourself why it would be that high for 75k-85k a year. Heed that as a warning.
