C Space reviews

2.6

29% would recommend to a friend

(338 total reviews)
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Melissa Sauter

5% approve of CEO

20% positive business outlook

C Space has an employee rating of 2.6 out of 5 stars, based on 338 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The C Space employee rating is 30% below average for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

338 reviews
2.0
Jul 29, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-The people: There are some amazing people at C Space, and a general curiosity and excitement from the general pool of employees. There are plenty of smart, driven people working here, and I made some amazing friends and connections that I hope to stay in touch with. -The strategy work and insights: The actual insights engine itself is no longer a novel concept, and many companies are taking this in-house to save on expenditures. However, the storytellers and finished work product they weave together is truly amazing. -Location and Benefits: I found the salary, benefits, title, and location to be a huge draw. The office is so close to South Station and made for an easy commute. Plus in the summer, there are food trucks and beer gardens abound. Tons of great food and coffee places as well. The employee stock program is actually a great deal - looking back I regret not participating. They were working on a better bonus program before I left, but I was happy to see progress being made.

Cons

-Corporate Structure and Governance: So many issues at agency level and holding company level. There are Directors and VPs that are related to the ELT or other senior staff, or have been promoted/ placed in a leadership position because of family money and connections to potential customers. If you believe in a meritocracy, this is not the place for you. You have to know people to get ahead, or be lucky enough to be liked and/or work under a rising star. Also, be prepared for a corporate restructuring (i.e. layoffs) at least once or twice year. People just seem to disappear around you, and no one can really tell you why. -Unsustainable Business Model: Eventually, customers will take the bread and butter of the old Communispace platform in house or find a cheaper way to execute online. They are making strides to get ahead of this, but I would argue it's already too late given the need for so many restructures. -Culture and D&I: The teams really try to enhance culture, and approach it from a ground up perspective; however, given the instability at the company, it's hard to boost morale. Also, severe lack of diversity throughout the company. -Work Life Balance: This is also very dependent on your team, but it's very easy to burn yourself out here. Agency life isn't for the faint of heart, but oftentimes, you are working late because everyone else on your team has to catch early trains, and little to nothing gets done after hours. The work trickles down, and you'll see SVPs and VPs leaving at 5 on the dot consistently.

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C Space Response
5y
Thank you for writing about your time at C Space. We truly appreciate your mentions of the positives in working with us: the quality of our insights and storytelling work for our clients, the caliber of our people, and our overall salary and benefit package--including our amenity-filled location near south station in Boston! Especially during these COVID times with virtually everyone working from home, it is nice to remember our attractive office environment. It is true that we are part of a holding company which can present additional governing complexities at times. The flip side is that it also offers us a large network of other agencies and professional associates with whom to build and expand our business from, and in general our parent company lets us run our business since they know we do it successfully. Your comment about potential nepotism doesn’t ring true with me. We do have a few married couples but they are not in similar roles or functions; and building business always means leveraging your networks for prospecting. As far as your thoughts go about not being a meritocracy, we work hard to ensure that each person who advances has earned their position, and we do this through balanced, objective and fair calibrations across teams. And though we unfortunately did have to say goodbye this year to less than 20 people in the spring-- which was heart wrenching – it was understandable due to pressures from the coronavirus effects on our business. That is not something thankfully we’ve had to do for several years honestly. Acknowledging that we can definitely do better with regards diversity of our agency, our DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) effort has launched with great enthusiasm this year; we have an 80 person strong Allies group, a peer-nominated governance board for the Americas and EMEA, and aggressive goals set by our CEO for the next few years. Like many organizations, the murder of George Floyd and others this year have moved us to develop commitments that we will work hard, collectively, to meet. Related to work life balance, especially this year we know how much stress has played a significant role in our lives on top of covid worries, racial unrest and injustice, and election concerns. We’ve consistently sought the advice of our working parents, offered leaves, and provided additional holidays as well as summer – which have morphed into “focus”-- Friday afternoons. I agree with you completely that agency life is not for the faint of heart! Our culture however encourages flexibility, meaning work when you can/need to, instead of rigid, formal business hours; this is especially true now when people are not running to catch trains. Finally your point about bringing in new talent is a good one; we’ve happily made 10-15 hires in the past two months, and though we are committed to filling leadership roles from within wherever possible for the advancement of our people, when we need new skillsets we do look to the outside at all levels. We appreciate your years of hard work as a consultant and wish you all the best.
2.0
May 28, 2020

You gotta play the game

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Like most agencies, C Space moved to an 100% remote workforce in mid-March but unlike most agencies, they did it with little to no business disruption. Everyone likes to complain about IT, but they really came through for us at the most important time. - Most people are great -- curious, smart, and willing to go the extra mile to help out a colleague. People are generally empathetic and open. - Work is interesting. The company is making moves to transform their business model and we have access to many leading companies across industries. I believe their Customer Agency mission is genuine and will be a winning strategy in the end. Their subscription business model provides much needed stability.

Cons

- Promotions and compensation are a mystery. HR & leadership has made attempts to clarify policies but there seems to always be the "policy" and then the "real" way things are happening and decisions are being made. "Off-cylce" promotions connected to frequent re-orgs make it hard to plan a career. This isn't a place to plan a thoughtful career -- it's sort of a luck of the draw or aligning yourself with senior leadership. - Leadership is insular and resistant to feedback. I personally don't feel safe giving true feedback to leadership without being pinned as a "complainer" or "traditional." HR often tries to push new channels to give feedback as they know this is an issue, but new channels is just a bandaid. The true cause of people not giving feedback is that the know it will come back to bite them. There is maybe 2 people I would ever actually give feedback to on the Americas Leadership Team and feel safe doing so. - Our staffing issues are so systemically bad (and more than I've see at other agencies). Either we're not charging clients enough or we're doing extra work, but something isn't adding up in the numbers. We never have nearly enough people to deliver on the work. - Constant re-orging. I'm all for growth and evolution, but C Space changes strategy every 6 months. Leadership doesn't seem to understand that every time there is a large org change, productivity and culture is disrupted. When people bring up this feedback, leadership pins them as "against improvement." - Being part of a holding company (Omnicom) comes with its challenges -- centralized services like building management companies and IT functions that are decidedly NOT consumer-centric, business decisions driven by quarterly KPIs instead of long-term growth, and caps on compensation. On the other hand, it does provide us with some stability and accountability. All in all, its best to just play the game with C Space - do your work, get close to some senior leaders and hope for the best.

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C Space Response
6y
Thank you for the feedback on C Space, what we’re doing well and where we have room to improve. You clearly took the time to write something thoughtful and detailed, and given you are a current employee it is based on your experience. The positives you note are ones we celebrate and take great pride in: thank you. They span the caliber of our people, how we’re innovating our strategy and business model, our incredible list of clients and even our amazing technology group that has enabled us to work anytime anywhere. I would add our vibrant culture and values which guide our day to day behaviors and how we treat each other. The negatives are disheartening to read of course and I’m truly sorry you believe advancement and opportunity lies with who you know, luck or playing a game. Nothing could be farther from the people goals we have or the strides we believe we have made in clarifying our communication strategy and tools, like the Spot. I can’t underscore this enough -- if these are the experiences you’re having it is vital that you speak up to a trusted person, ideally your reporting manager or one of us on the People Team. I know you believe we have tried to clarify things and that too much happens behind the scenes. The only thing I can say there is that we try to plan how each year will go in advance – how many cycles of promotions to hold (based on our current growth and past experiences), how to provide merit cycles that align with “rules” that come from our parent company, and how to provide flexibility so that an urgent business and yes sometimes organizational change-related promotion can occur. And then things like COVID happen, or our revenue forecasts must be scaled back, and we need to reevaluate how much discretionary investment we can make. All of these things are part of running a successful business overall, which happily, overall, we are. Your comments about psychological safety are a problem, and against our values of “telling it like it is” and “open up and listen.” Phil or I would truly welcome a private chat on how you are experiencing this so we can do better, or I'd encourage you to reach out to one of the ALT members you feel safe discussing issues with. It’s true that for every complaint there should be a solution, and often solutions come from those that are closest to the issue. But that shouldn’t affect your or anyone’s day to day experience and make you feel this discouraged. As for the other areas you feel are issues, I won’t go line by line, but would like to assure you that we are aware of and working on them across various channels. A professional services company typically struggles to staff optimally, and pricing our work as the market shifts and competitors mimic our offering, certainly these will always be works in progress. And you’re right, being part of a holding company is a balance of many pros, and some cons. Recognizing all our people regardless of client account or role, is a priority for sure. In summary, I don’t think we view anyone’s career here as a game to be played. Every organization has work to do, and ours is no exception—but I am hoping you will find that some of these issues can and are moving in a positive direction. In my experience, those that speak up and work constructively to improve things, are rewarded in spades. Don’t forget that “do what scares you” is one of our values too, and we know change can feel scary – which is why it is so important that we work together to overcome our fears and make C Space realize its endless potential. Thank you for all your hard work for us.
3.0
Feb 14, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

During my time at C Space I enjoyed learning from a group of bright, passionate colleagues. The client list was impressive, as was the work C Space was doing. There was a true sense of camaraderie, even during difficult times and conversations.

Cons

I left C Space due to constant challenges with resourcing and workload. More than any other company I've worked for, C Space struggles to hire and retain enough people to support their work. I understand that the parent company presents some challenges, but not being able to back fill roles even during times of growth is demoralizing. I had no work-life balance and the stress level was unsustainable.

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C Space Response
6y
Thank you for writing your feedback about C Space. We appreciate the positive comments representing the best of us: our clients, our work -- making business more human, our people and our teams/collegiality. I’m very sorry you left us based on your workload and stress being over the top. Resourcing – particularly across so many accounts, types of work and skill sets – is a challenge no doubt, and one we continue to battle with working teams attacking the root issues. Our attrition has been tracking at less than 20% over the last twelve months -- far lower than many other professional service agencies. We continue to promote and invest in our current employees, and make additional hires as we can afford new investments based on our growth projections. It is a tricky balance for sure. We always encourage people to raise these types of feelings with their reporting managers or come to the People team for guidance, particularly if work/life balance doesn’t improve over time. We greatly value your contributions to C Space during your time here, and we wish you the best of luck in your new opportunity.
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Glassdoor has 360 C Space reviews submitted anonymously by C Space employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if C Space is right for you.