That said, there were a LOT of opportunities for improvement and a lot of fat to trim because Ferguson is the personification of “The Old Boys Club.” He takes care of his own, which can be a double edge sword. Get involved in a sexual assault lawsuit? You get transferred to run over seas operations, or moved to one of his other companies like Upwork. Not making the cut as a sales rep? You get promoted to be a solutions architect. As someone who did not begin my career with Careerbuilder, this made it frustrating to try and improve the overall performance in a specific area, because the team generally did not understand (or care to understand) what it meant to “work smarter.” Particularly the product and “Project Management” teams. Technology was consistently broken, implementations were ALWAYS behind schedule, and any recommendations to improve/correct were seen as negative criticism and were dismissed. They rushed into the purchase of a benefit software platform who was rumored to have actually stolen their code from another company, and who botched the implementation of so many projects, their own employees refer to themselves as “Workterrable.” They also prided themselves on the acquisition of a job posting distribution tool that put employers at risk of non-compliance, due to dishonesty and negligence internally, and any effort to correct errors was again seen as disrespectful. All of this while ignoring the previous acquisition of a company which has the ability to seriously change the way business is done via big data. As an organization, their best asset was their sales team. Then came Apollo. They cleaned house, but instead of firing the bro’s who were busy bragging about banging and ignoring glaring operational risks, they fired the best sales reps the company had, all in the name of a dollar. They kept directors who have (present tense) a history of favoritism, verbal abuse, dishonestly and flat out discrimination. They pushed out Retention Managers who had saved entire divisions. Their only internal retention tool, after firing their biggest assets and crushing morale, was their benefits package, which they butchered without warning, notice, or explanation. In less than 6 months, their reputation was smashed and it seems this may have been the goal, in order to sell fast, hoping nobody would notice.
