Pros
- Located in SF - Smart, talented, dedicated, fun staff - Social mission - Genuine respect between most employees - Great outward facing company image - Excellent at framing/storytelling - Hiring a COO is a step in the right direction but she needs full control to be successful
Cons
- Extremely high turnover: out of a 30 person office, in the last 12 months 18 FTEs have quit, 3 have been let go - Highly inexperienced, micromanaging senior leadership (CEO, VP Operations) - CEO is arguably the biggest reason for people leaving (difficult personality, lack of true business experience, egotistical behavior) - Unstable business model -- missteps on the business side are gravely hurting the social mission - Serious lack of focus and direction, major decisions and opinions change daily - No alignment between Sales-Delivery-Marketing-Development team goals and direction - Poor HR practices (no escalation process, no formal HR, no managerial oversight) - HR and Finance are run uprofessionally by people without any experience - Sensitive information (i.e. HR, pay, role changes) are handled without professionalism and stored in public folders - Very tense/awkward office environment (negative culture) - Little to no financial transparency - No career path - Arbitrary promotions and raises (not based on tenure, merit, or path) - Not family friendly (long hours, no PTO for working or expectant parents) - Lack of work-life balance is what is valued, not performance - Favoritism (those “close” to upper management are out of the office 40% of the time) - Acts like a start up when it’s convenient and a nonprofit when it’s convenient - Wasteful with resources