Pros
A very creative team of employees. I worked with some of the most creative and clever professionals at Static Media. I was amazed with some of the ideas that fellow editors and the content strategy team were able to come up in short amounts of time. Good benefits. Work from home/remote work option. This was much appreciated during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Fun co-workers who are into celebrity gossip, video games, pop culture, and movies & TV. There's always something fun to talk about with co-workers. A bigger company with a small company feel. Interesting and fun content and subject matter. Day-to-day work involves staying in the loop with fun pop culture topics. Entry level positions are great experiences for younger/new professionals. You have the opportunity to work and interact with other departments and teams.
Cons
Static Media is simply a content producing machine. They're very successful at producing an impressive amount of content for their brands daily, but this comes with the cost of employees’ wellbeing. Pay is pretty low compared to similar editorial and media positions in the industry, especially for how much work is expected of Static's employees. There is no human resources department. The "HR" concept was just a payroll and a third-party software for managing benefits and PTO during my time at Static Media. There was no actual HR department or human resources team you could reach out to if you had a workplace issue. If there was a problem then you'd be instructed to speak to your manager. But what if, hypothetically, the issue involves your manager? You have no one to go to with your issue to help get resolved. In certain cases where I did have an issue with another co-worker, my manager would listen to me but nothing would ever happen. Workload is unreasonable and burnout is very common among employees. During most weeks there's simply no time to breathe and decompress from work. Everything was either ASAP/high priority or "hurry up and wait." If you speak to your manager about having too much work in your queue, they’d be helpful with removing some of the workload. But you can count on your workload once again increasing a week or two later – and you’ll be back to square one. Employees aren't treated equally. It's clear from the first few months working at the company that a lot of employees are overworked while some have too much free time on their hands. In some cases I have seen these employees brag about the small amount of work they have to do on Fridays right before long weekends, while other employees will have to work late on Fridays – cutting into their weekend. This is where management needs to step in and, if necessary, shift responsibilities around so everyone has an equal workload. Work-life balance is an absolute foreign concept. Some members of upper management have workaholic tendencies and assume employees under them have this mindset as well. As we have all seen from different research and articles - having a workaholic mindset is never healthy. There were many times I received emails/messages/and even phone calls from managers and upper management during non-work hours in the evening, weekends, holidays, weddings, during doctor appointments, funerals, and even while on vacation to perform a task or complete something. In most cases, these tasks could've waited until work hours the next day or when I returned from vacation, but management was adamant that they get completed. This would cause regular burnout for myself and other employees. If you're thinking of going on a vacation while working here, you might as well bring your work laptop with you... Depending on which department you work in, there's not much room for growth and not many opportunities to gain marketable professional skills once you're beyond an entry-level position. Responsibilities will be shifted regularly. If you accept an offer for one role at Static, there's a good chance your duties and even job role will change immensely. The company culture, overall, needs improvement. Static Media is a large company that has been around for a while, but I often wondered why there was no company core values or a mission statement at the very least. There is no system for individual goal-setting or team goal-setting. Employees are encouraged to just keep their heads down and grind, rather than take a step back and look at the big picture of what they're doing, and how they’re daily work will help them grow. Sure, sometimes tasks just need to get done. But when every day is treated this way, it becomes a disappointing and anxiety fueled work loop.