A quickly sinking ship - Anonymous employee Ogilvy Employee Review

2.0
Nov 16, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

HR department is fantastic at finding genuinely nice, talented employees. Coworkers have true comaraderie and enjoy each other. The CEO means well.

Cons

Beware. They fire or layoff employees at whim when they need to cut costs or project blame. There is at least one (sometimes two) farewell email every week these days. Employees are worried daily about keeping their jobs. 50% of the company has left in one year. There are barely enough employees to cover the work they have, let alone assist in new pursuits. Designers run the company, even in disciplines of which they are not experts. 'Hybrid roles' are a mask for the misassumption within that designers can do everyone else's job. There is no strategy within the company other than to make sure the layers of leadership keep their jobs through the ongoing merge into the parent company.

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Ogilvy Response
8y
Thank you for taking the time to share feedback on your experience at Effective. We agree this is an organization made up of incredibly talented individuals, and we acknowledge it has been a challenging year with more turnover than we want. It is disheartening to hear there's a perception that layoffs are done on a whim. In the company's twelve-year history there have been two layoffs, both of which were done as a last resort after having exhausted every other possible cost-cutting measure. This year’s reduction was the direct result of losing a piece of client business. Effective is an organization that cares deeply about employee experience, however, if employees are not feeling heard we must be missing the mark. We will take this feedback as an opportunity to rethink the way we share information and engage with our team members. We strive to be an organization without red tape and bureaucracy, where people feel connected, supported, and empowered. Thank you again for your feedback and we wish you the best in your next chapter.

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