Handled COVID-19 Poorly + Cliquey Team - Program Strategist Youth Marketing Connection Employee Review

Thank you for taking the time to provide a review and we are sorry that you had such a negative experience at YMC. Clearly, we have more work to do. In terms of the COVID-19 pandemic, like the rest of the world we were forced into a situation that we had no control over. Between cancelled and paused client work, we lost over 80% of our revenue in the span of 60 days. We stopped all owner compensation, reduced leadership compensation, exhausted savings, and tapped into the federal PPP program to pay employees for as long as possible while continuing to cover 100% of their health, vision, and dental premiums for platinum healthcare plans. Many of which we continued to pay indefinitely. Unfortunately, YMC is a business, and without income we had to decrease our costs, which meant laying off part of our workforce after PPP funding ran out. In terms of the role itself, it's a recruitment heavy position and that was hopefully made clear through the interview process. Nothing can change that. Under normal non-COVID times, as team members with no professional experience reach their 1-1.5-year mark, they typically begin to have a lot more interaction directly with clients. Some get that opportunity earlier, and some later. There is never an expectation to be available 24/7. If that expectation was somehow set by a manager or leadership, we were not made aware of it or it would have been addressed immediately. The role does however require management of people on the east and west coast, and some events do occur on nights and weekends, but we allow for flexible work hours to accommodate. Regarding salary, our starting salaries for this role which typically hires candidates straight out of college is $40-45K and has continued to increase with the Cost-of-Living index and average take home pay for the position is $44,250 annually including bonuses and other forms of compensation. That salary range is right around average for entry-level salaries in the marketing/communications/media field across cities including DC, Boston, and NYC for businesses of this size. Most of our employees also take advantage of our benefits package including 100% of premiums paid for a platinum healthcare plan (medical, vision, and dental). The cost of that coverage is over $5,000/year. We hope you all the best in your career and wish we could have provided a better start for you.