I worked for Paycom less than a year and left on my own accord despite finding success in the role. While Paycom's corporate culture in Oklahoma City is strong, the culture of the sales offices across the country vary greatly. Employees are attracted to the organization for the compensation and professional development, but leave because of the toxic work culture and inexperienced management. The office I worked for has been a revolving door for the past two years. Personal opinion aside, the numbers are alarming. During my time at the company there was an average of six members on the sales team at any given point. Over the course of seven month period they lost seven employees. In my training class I had over 20 team members from offices across the country. By the end of the year 75% had left the organization.
Regional management emphasizes the importance of feedback and continuous development, however this is not embraced by local management. Employees are not given opportunities to deliver feedback to their managers and when they are it is often disregarded. At one point in the year we were asked to prepare SWOT analysis by upper management. Many of us put immense amount of time into preparing our summaries only to be told by local management that the exercise was not a good use of time and that it created too much "negativity." Paycom will cite that many employees are pushed out of their comfort zone because of the company's dedication to innovation and improvement. While that is true, a breakdown occurs because local management is not given the proper training on how to implement change.
Cold calling and booking meetings are the single most important metric employees are held accountable to. Even if you are ahead of your revenue goals for the year, you can be put on a performance improvement plan for not making enough dials/booking enough meetings. On several occasions management would walk out onto the sales floor, raise their voice and literally yell/scold the team if they weren't making enough dials. No adult in a professional work environment deserves to be screamed or cussed at.
The challenge is new employees inherit territories that have already been worked to the bone. In addition we were encouraged to lie about our experience to build credibility with the C-level execs when trying to book meetings. If you were told "no" over the phone, it was an expectation to simply call again and then show up unannounced in person later that week. At the end of the week, employees would boast and brag about how many times they were escorted out of buildings or had doors slammed in their face.
Employees are not guaranteed regular one on one check ins with their managers. Instead management would often have employees compete to get one on one attention. During some weeks, time with management was only granted if you were able to book "x" amount of meetings in a given morning. The problem with this systems is it only widens the gap between experienced reps and those that are struggling. The reps that could really use the additional coaching time to get better at booking meetings are denied equitable opportunity. This is an example of how Paycom's actions directly contradict the culture of "growth and development" they preach.
Paycom will boast it has a great culture by pointing to its generous compensation, benefits and fun events like monthly winner's circles and its annual president's club. Some offices even have ping pong tables and board games set out on conference tables. What they fail to understand is these "carrots" do not make up for the treatment of employees on a daily basis by local management. They hire managers based on their sales record, but don't pay attention to if they have the EQ and soft skills to actually develop and coach others to become high performers.
