I worked for Daxko for nearly 4 years. I can honestly say those were the most challenging, frustrating, and depressing years of my professional career.
Before I accepted the position at Daxko, I conducted a lot of research into the company. This was at the end of Daxko’s golden era, before most of the negative reviews were posted on Glassdoor and elsewhere. I couldn’t find anything to keep me from accepting the position. Daxko seemed like a shining beacon of opportunity and professional growth. Little did I know that this was certainly not the case. Conditions just hadn’t been quite bad enough to provoke people to leave negative reviews. As you can see, the outlook on employment at Daxko has completely changed.
Not 2 weeks after my first day at Daxko, both my Team Lead and the SVP of Services announced in a meeting that they were moving on to other companies. I was shocked by the fact that the 2 people responsible for hiring me were leaving within my first month. That theme of abandonment would continue throughout my tenure there. During my time in my primary role, I would work under 3 additional Team Leads. None of them were qualified or knowledgeable in their team’s responsibilities or day to day job. None of them were capable leaders. None of them had ‘boots on the ground’ in the area they were responsible for leading. My team was also without a Team Lead for 2 six month spans of time. As the most tenured person on the team, I stepped up to fill the gaping hole for my team during these gaps. I subsequently interviewed for the Team Lead position both times. However, Team Leads were chosen from other areas, despite each candidate’s lack of knowledge in my team’s area of expertise. Unfortunately, this is a trend throughout Services at Daxko. Capable and qualified team members are constantly overlooked. Popular individuals are promoted regardless of capabilities or talent. The lack of quality leadership throughout Services and the lack of organization made that entire area of Daxko feel like a sinking ship. Every Team Member was constantly overworked, overstressed, underled, and underpaid. It was common knowledge throughout Daxko that nobody wanted to work in Services if they could help it.
If there had been room for growth outside of Services, it wouldn’t have been such a difficult place to work. But Team Members were constantly held back from securing roles within other areas of Daxko. If you were in Services, leadership made sure you stayed in Services. Your ‘career path’ was completely limited to opportunities within that department. It was rare for anyone to achieve a position in another area of the company. Though Daxko constantly advertised that Team Members were encouraged to shadow, learn, and grow, Services strategically limited those professional development experiences to within the department. This meant that those interested in exploring other areas of Daxko were manipulated into abandoning those interests.
There are talented and amazing people that I got to meet and work with throughout my years with Daxko. I have been fortunate enough to forge some true friendships with some of the people I got to work with the most. That said, Daxko is also a breeding ground for a cliquish environment. Daxko repeatedly promotes based on popularity and looks instead of talent, drive, or work ethic. Because of this, immature Team Leads and those close to them have been allowed to turn Daxko into a high school like environment. Drama between Team Members isn’t handled professionally. Team Leads don’t step in to help resolve the issues, leading to this unhealthy environment being almost encouraged. As another example, Team Leads and Team Members have been known to negatively discuss other individuals at Daxko via group chats. This is common knowledge. Daxko hosts leadership trainings at least twice a year for their Team Leads. However, until Daxko promotes based on merit and performance, this kind of toxic environment will remain.
As I mentioned above, praise, reward and promotions are not given based on merit. This is especially frustrating for its hard working and loyal employees who are worked to the bone for Daxko. Over the years, I saw so many people who deserved to be recognized for their outstanding performance looked over in favor of more popular Team Members. Unfortunately, at Daxko, being popular is more important and more quickly rewarded than being talented.
Daxko touts a lot of perks, presumably to make up for the low pay based on industry standards. However, many of those perks are not all they are cracked up to be. One of the most flashy perks, unlimited time off, is as deceiving as they come. I have been told by several Team Leads that time off requests are meticulously tracked. Meaning that unlimited time off is only unlimited to a point. However, this is concealed from Team Members so that they think they have the freedom to take off when they need. Another perk that is tracked is requests to work from home. Even though Daxko advertises itself as a hip and flexible tech company, it continues to tightly control the freedom of its Team Members. Over and over, I’ve seen Team Leads work from home one day, yet reluctantly allow their Team Members to work from home the next. I’ve even personally been told that I needed to provide a list of goals for the day I requested to work from home. That way, my Team Lead and I could discuss my accomplishments compared to those goals once I was back in the office. This tight grip on Team Members, and the disregard for flexibility and fairness, greatly reduces the likelihood a Team Member will find happiness working at Daxko.
Excessive and ill planned acquisitions are another concerning change that has been brought about since the switch to the current private equity firm. At least four acquisitions have taken place and none of them seemed to be well planned or executed. This has led to major growing pains at Daxko, including loss of the Daxko culture, and a major identity crisis. Daxko was once a Birmingham-based company. Now, with major leadership working out of other offices, Daxko is seemingly led out of Denver or Chicago. Early in the new CEO’s tenure, he even made the comment that he doesn’t care about Daxko being Birmingham-based or the Birmingham tech scene. This is especially frustrating since leadership is less accessible and there is now a disturbing lack of transparency within the company.
Another concerning trend I have noticed is that Daxko has started cutting jobs for several loyal, long time employees. Instead of moving those employees into other areas of the company, like I have seen it do in the past, they have simply been let go. To treat loyal employees with such callousness is shocking. Especially since the employees who have been let go recently always went above and beyond, bent over backwards for others, and were huge cheerleaders for Daxko.
Despite all of this, Dave Gray, the former CEO of Daxko, made all these negatives at least a little more bearable. He constantly displayed care and concern for all of his employees, not just the top level ones. He constantly fought to maintain the culture of Daxko. He constantly sought to find additional ways to reward Team Members. Once Dave left, the private equity firm pulling all the strings at Daxko destroyed nearly everything he had worked so hard for. Perks were slashed. Profit was placed well above Team Member happiness. The new CEO is a complete embodiment of all that Daxko has lost. He doesn’t care about Team Members, and publicly rewards only the individuals who blindly support him. With this kind of ‘leadership’, Daxko has set out on a very negative and dangerous path.
As at least one other reviewer has mentioned, the new CEO has been reported multiple times for inappropriate conduct towards female employees. This conduct, and the fact that no action has been taken against him for this behavior, has led many of Daxko’s female employees to leave. Sadly, some of the individuals who have been forced to leave were high ranking and valuable employees.
Interestingly enough, the CEO’s approval rating on Glassdoor was 25% on February 22, 2019. Today, March 26, 2019, his approval rating is 45%. I’d like to know how his approval rating has increased by 20% in less than a month. This increase in the CEO’s approval rating is very suspicious and makes me question how much control the HR department really does have on Daxko’s Glassdoor image.
To this point, do not believe any of the recent positive reviews left about Daxko. Many of those reviews are actually from Team Leads. I know from direct conversations that many Team Members of Daxko are increasingly unsatisfied by the company and its direction. Please read all of the negative reviews before believing any of the positive ones. I would never recommend anyone to accept a job at Daxko. I never write reviews, but by writing this one, I’m hoping to save someone from making a terrible mistake and joining Daxko. Leaving Daxko was honestly the best decision I have ever made for myself, my career, and my sanity. Please look elsewhere! You deserve to be valued and treated with respect.
