Where to begin..... let's start with the way changes are made and communicated. Major company upheavals have happened in the blink of an eye. Roughly 50 employees were informed via a webinar that their jobs were moving to another center (Atlanta, GA) with no warning. It was another week before the employees were informed that they would still have jobs in D.C., and another week after that when they found out what their options were. To repeat, 50 employees found out via a WEBINAR that they were losing their jobs and it took two weeks for there to be an answer as to what the company was going to do with them.
Upper management does not seem to comprehend how the word works now or how their clients want their listings updated. To have people on level three portfolios have to make 10 two minute phone calls per day is not necessary and in some ways hurts the clients. When the entire day is spent calling people with one or two listings in a different portfolio to hit a metric there is not enough time to update the dozens of emails the clients are sending in, nor is there time to update the listings for the clients. I feel that management does not want the researchers to succeed in their jobs, perhaps because they don't want to pay out "so much" for bonuses. Every day it is a struggle to either do my job (get my phone calls and not update my portfolio and work with/for my brokers) or I can do my work (update emails, listings via LoopNet/websites as clients request), but I can't do my work and my job in one day. The metrics are incredibly high and mostly unattainable.
Management can't do a thing about any of the metrics. They primarily function as babysitters, hovering over your shoulder making sure you are hitting your call metrics. They are merely puppets for upper management and have their own unattainable goals. They are also incredibly petty and whisper behind others' backs and discuss tactics, but can't solve anything because they are also just another cog in the machine.
They also promise that there is growth within the research department (not terribly easy) and other opportunities within the company (hardly). Don't let that fool you.
It's pretty evident that the research staff is miserable, but anything that was previously used to boost morale (tickets to a Nats game, "Company Day" with a half day off, random ice cream days, random company gifts) have all been taken away. Anything like that would help, the research staff feels incredibly unappreciated, overworked, and underutilized. The least you could do is have ice cream once.
