Data Systems International reviews

For anyone reading DSI’s Glassdoor reviews, there is probably a lot of confusion due to the extreme postings. There is no in between. You have those people who were wronged by the company and those who have loyalty to the company. One post stated most of the negative posts are simply opinions. While that may be true, I thought I could share some facts that help explain how this company is being managed. In 2019, the leadership team took a trip to Aruba with spouses included. As this was lumped in with the sales club trip, there were somewhere between 50-75 people on this trip. Two months later, management decided the cash service awards which had been in place for the last several years were no longer sustainable. These awards were paid out in April – it was a guarantee that employees looked forward to. There were several individuals expecting and planning on receiving between $5k and $10k; however, they decided not to payout those awards and waited until May to communicate it. While unpopular changes around bonuses are sometimes necessary in a growing company, the approach taken was sadly unprofessional. In my opinion, I think it would have been better to pay out those awards and then communicate to the employees that they are no longer sustainable on a go-forward basis and 2019 would be the last year of service awards but then again, that’s just my opinion. The year before (and I’m still a little confused on this point), management implemented no more annual raises unless the employee was getting a promotion. The department I managed was very small and left very little room for promotion. Not only was that new policy not communicated to me as a manager (I actually was asked about it by an employee) but there was no explanation on how we were to handle those employees who had put in their time and effort and truly deserved a raise. Luckily, managers started to find a way around the new policy, and everyone started getting a promotion to help keep their teams happy. However, some departments had no room for promotions, so they were left with no raises. Unfortunately, as a lot of posts have mentioned, over the last month, the company experienced massive layoffs. I’m unaware of exact numbers but have heard anywhere between 30-50 people. While so many companies are being impacted by COVID-19, and I truly feel for those companies, DSI should not have been impacted so suddenly by this pandemic. Anyone who has been to a townhall meeting knows how big maintenance revenue is for DSI. I can’t tell you how many times I heard it called the lifeline of the company. And that’s what it is – annual recurring revenue. I’m trying to understand how COVID, hitting in just the past month, could affect a company so drastically that they laid off 25% of their workforce yet they still have their “cash cow” of maintenance. Keep in mind they still took their annual club trip to the Cayman Islands just a month prior. And even through the massive layoffs they just experienced, they still found room in their budget to keep the leadership team’s personal trainer on staff even though everyone is currently working from home and the gym is closed. In addition, I recently heard they have decided to stop matching 401k. It’s unfortunate to see a company make decisions like this when they could have been avoided if it would have been managed better. I had faith in this company when Matt McGraw was in charge. Was Matt perfect? No, of course not, but I felt like he cared about the employees. I lost all hope when Mark Goode took over. I feel like he is in it for himself and himself alone. I’ve personally watched him take credit for an idea he thinks is gold and then blame someone for the exact same idea when it didn’t pan out the way he hoped it would. He blames everyone else for the downfalls of the company and has yet to take any personal responsibility. My advice to anyone considering taking a position at DSI: Please consider all other options first.