Culture: The company preaches about having a great culture, and as someone else here mentioned, they love their best workplace awards. However, a great workplace is not the reality for a lot of people. Many experience intense micromanagement, unreasonable workloads, and favoritism. Basis cares more about following processes than producing results for their clients, making it a challenge to manage clients while keeping your boss happy.
You'll see many reviews mention a "honeymoon phase" with Basis. It seems like that is just the time it takes for employees to realize that what they're being told by leadership differs from what they're actually experiencing.
“4.5-Day Work Week”: You’ll notice that Basis has really been pushing a puff piece about their adoption of a 4.5-day workweek. What they’re not as open about is the fact that employees are still expected to work during the 0.5 day they are given "off".
In the Summer of 2023, Basis rolled out "Flex Fridays". Every other Friday, Basis would have a full-day Flex Friday, and in between, employees were given half-day Flex Fridays. Flex time is positioned as time for Basis employees to rest or take care of things they wouldn’t normally be able to do during work hours.
What is important to know here is that flex time isn’t time off. You are 100% expected to respond to clients if it’s something emergent (which managers will have you think is 95% of requests) or work if you haven’t completed everything that was on your plate that week. Most individual contributors end up having to work during this time, often with less support.
Layoffs & Lack of Transparency: There have been 3 rounds of layoffs since last spring, which they keep calling “restructures”. Re-branding layoffs as restructures feels a lot like an attempt to save face and prevent their employees from looking for jobs at organizations that are more stable. Basis claims to be a great place to work for parents, but they’ve laid off employees on mat leave and others who were pregnant. They also laid off employees who had been with the company for over 10 years without notice.
They couldn’t even be bothered to schedule an all-hands call about the second round of layoffs and instead sent a pre-recorded video the day after layoffs occurred, delivering the news to employees.
They didn’t meet sales goals last year, which isn’t shocking considering the chaotically rolled-out restructuring of the org in Q1 of ‘23. Instead of taking accountability, leadership seems happy to blame lower-level employees who, at the drop of a dime, were expected to learn entirely new job descriptions and processes that had many holes.
Compensation: Very little to say here; compensation was disappointing. They determine your pay based on the city you live in as opposed to experience or value you’re bringing. You’ll be lucky to get a meager 3% “merit raise” once a year if your boss doesn’t tank your PAD review.
Managerial Experience: I encountered significant levels of micromanagement that reached the extent of bullying at points during my time at Basis Technologies. While I had a manager that was notorious for micromanagement and being difficult to work for, I believe that the director position is inherently problematic because they are incentivized to micromanage. With limited involvement in client responsibilities, directors often seek recognition by overly supervising their subordinates.
Diversity: Claims to foster an inclusive environment, but what that means is they offer the opportunity to join an employee resource group. The groups are run by employees that either identify with a marginalized group or have a common interest. Employees who choose to participate are expected to complete projects related to these groups outside of working hours, increasing the burden on employees from said marginalized groups. The people that join these groups are usually fantastic and have their heart in the right place, but what’s being asked of them is neither fair, nor effective.
Clients: Because Basis is having a hard time meeting financial goals, they are unwilling to say no to clients, contributing to sinking morale. Because of this, there are times where individual contributors are expected to do things like log in on holidays to complete unreasonable requests. Also: if you have a problematic client, don’t expect your manager or leadership to do anything about it if dollars are on the table.
