Running itself into the ground - Anonymous employee Franklin Energy Employee Review

Growing company Helping the environment Helping clients, customers, contractors, and team members Flexible hours Remote work for many roles Teams where everyone feels a part Creative and extremely intelligent thought leaders and industry experts Jobs for every personality and skillset

Contracted work so things change from time to time

* Some talented people that are seriously trying * You can say you work in sustainability

This organization is weighed down by a culture that prioritizes internal bureaucracy over actually supporting the people who drive revenue. Support functions like accounting, payroll, IT, legal, and recruiting consistently create friction instead of removing it. Processes feel designed for the convenience of those teams rather than the business as a whole. Simple things like expense reporting, travel booking, payroll, or accessing systems are unnecessarily complicated and slow. Training is another weak point. The bar for what qualifies as “training” or “subject matter expertise” is surprisingly low. Sessions often lack depth, practical relevance, and real industry credibility. It’s hard to take them seriously or apply much of what’s taught. There are also too many non-value-added processes: 1) You need to submit tickets just to access basic systems—even when no approval is required. 2) Benefits are overly complex and difficult to understand, with too many niche programs instead of focusing on strong core offerings. 3) The recruiting process is so convoluted it requires long training sessions just to navigate it. On top of that, the company talks a lot about values but seems to miss the basics - consistent, high-quality execution. There’s far too much emphasis on “big moments” and not enough focus on just doing everyday work well. Transparency is poor. When you ask why something is done a certain way, the default answer is “it’s policy” or “it’s how we’ve always done it.” That kind of thinking kills trust and makes it clear that improvement isn’t a priority. There is a lot of feedback forms and listening sessions but nothing changes. Also no communication on what is done with the feedback The biggest issue, though, is HR leadership. The Chief People Officer spent their entire career as a recruiter—and now they’re responsible for the entire HR function. What a joke. It shows in how disconnected HR policies and processes are from actual operational needs.