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      Future

      Engaged Employer

      Future reviews

      3.2

      44% would recommend to a friend

      (714 total reviews)

      Kevin Li Ying

      60% approve of CEO

      36% positive business outlook

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Future has an employee rating of 3.2 out of 5 stars, based on 714 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Future employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      714 reviews
      2.0
      Apr 11, 2019

      Future is Stuck in the Past

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Decent benefits though forget about getting much of a raise Freedom to work from home Unlimited PTO

      Cons

      - Job doesn't feel secure - We live in a modern era where video conferencing, phone calls, and airplanes make it incredibly easy to stay in touch and accomplish much without a physical location. Right after acquiring Purch, they removed all the video conferencing equipment in the Utah building and later claimed they laid off the whole building because it was "too hard" to communicate with them. They claim they want a bigger presence in the United States yet they're consolidating all the US brands to a tiny space in New York where there isn't enough room to test the many products their sites claim to test. They're also putting more work on the shoulders of fewer people. - HR and IT have been incredibly consolidated and it takes way too long to get any kind of answers or help from them. IT is also overly stingy about putting necessary software on your computers. My boss needed to add Adobe typekit to his machine so he could get the needed fonts for the multiple brands we work on and he had to jump through tons of hoops just to get that done. They treated it with way too much suspicion - like he wanted to install something malicious. - Future has acquired a ton of brands in an incredibly short amount of time and made tons of decisions about those brands without taking the necessary time to do their research and incorporate them correctly. - Senior level management seems to care more about increasing the number of brands they have and building their monetization platform than building the brands and helping them flourish. Being primarily a magazine company, they also refuse to put more effort into social media - which is huge in the United States and an almost necessary platform for advertising and increasing traffic these days. - Future is overly stingy about money in the wrong places and doesn't care enough in the right places. When traveling, you often have to share a hotel room with someone else which just screams lawsuit in the making. They immediately cut off wi-fi in the Utah building when they laid everyone off and the handful of people who were staying on with the company had to pack up 100s of thousands of dollars worth of products and equipment in a week of time and donate much of it to thrift stores. Future could have saved more money by giving the employees time to sell the equipment. Also, several of the employees had to pull 12 hour days to get the products shipped out.

      avatar
      Future Response
      7y
      Thank you for your review of Future plc. Earlier this year we made the decision to transfer our tech brand TopTenReviews, which operated out of our office in Ogden, to New York, and to close the office. While this was a hard decision to make, it was vital that TopTenReviews was no longer isolated from the rest of the company, and that the team could more easily benefit from local centralised support around SEO, deals content and testing. This was ultimately the best decision for the brand and for aligning the team with the rest of the company. As ambassadors for Future, our People & Culture and IT teams are on hand to help you whenever you need them and aim to respond to all queries within 24 hours. IT have also launched the new IT Service Hub where you can submit queries and immediately be designated a member of the IT team to help. If there is a valid business case for why you need a new piece of hardware or software, IT will always look into this for you. Future has expanded greatly over the last year due to both organic growth and acquisitions. We only acquire a company when we are sure that it fully aligns with our mission and portfolio. We appreciate that this represents change for a lot of people and know how important it is to integrate our new team members into Future. While there is still work to be done, we always listen to the feedback we get and have taken actions to ensure everyone feels part of the Future team. We agree that social media is a crucial part of boosting traffic and reaching a greater audience. Our Audience Development team plays a critical role here and works with all of our online brands to ensure they’re fully utilising SEO and social media. You can see this reflected in the Twitter followings of some of our biggest brands, such as PC Gamer and GamesRadar. We are also proud of our heritage as a publisher of magazines and believe that they are still a vital part of our success. Please reach out to the People & Culture team if you want to discuss any of these issues further at peopleandculture@futurenet.com
      2.0
      Apr 5, 2019

      The work can be fun but very little sense of security

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      The tech and music brands get to work with some cool stuff and gadgets you'd normally never have yourself Unlimited PTO policy Possibility of travel

      Cons

      Company policy doesn't allow merit-based raises, only annual cost-of-living / inflation pay increases every year. The only way to get a real raise is to get a promotion or change job position and job title. The company seems in constant flux from all the acquisitions and all the restructuring can be unsettling. Each buy out means the new people might be laid off, might replace the existing employees, or all of them get crammed in the same office. Lots of offices scattered across lots of time zones. Nearly all communication is done over email. Response time is usually slow because of the time differences.

      avatar
      Future Response
      7y
      Thank you for taking the time to leave a review of Future plc. We believe that all employees row the boat and we are very proud of our profit pool scheme which allows us to reward staff for their contribution to the business. We deliberately ensure that our targets are very clear so there is no ambiguity around this. Part of our business strategy is to grow via acquisition, which we realise means regular change - we recognise that this can be unsettling for employees. Throughout acquisition processes we try to provide as much clarity as possible to the business but encourage a business as usual approach. We value our employees greatly and want everyone to feel secure in their roles here. If you have queries, concerns or recommendations, please share with your People & Culture rep or email peopleandculture@futurenet.com.
      2.0
      Mar 26, 2019

      Avoid Future US

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Flexible hours, casual dress, free food, low-stress environment, work-life balance is perfect, opportunity for some travel. The actual work is fulfilling. Some of the leadership team is competent and helpful. **Before you read the con, do so with the caveat that Future US is NOT the same as Future UK. Yes, they are owned by the exact same company with the same leadership team, but the experience is completely different. Lucky you if you work for the UK office, I've heard of no problems there.

      Cons

      Where do I start. My company was acquired by Future and the work experience went downhill immediately. I loved my company and my work prior to the takeover, but post-takeover morale suffered across the board. Future doesn't care about individual employees. No raises or promotions are ever encouraged or offered, there are no career advancement opportunities whatsoever. Communication is a definite failure. Future doesn't address rumors until they are out of control, and only then do they send out a basic email with no information. You must wait weeks to hear back from IT and HR. An average of 2 weeks for IT (I've been tracking). Layoffs every few months, with very poor severance packages. Absolutely no local resources. If a computer breaks, you must contact someone in IT across the world to fix it. HR asked us to send SSNs through email (which isn't secure or legal). HR also lied to us about W2 information. They forgot to apply for State employer numbers and encouraged us to simply put a 9999999 as the number (also illegal). If the HR personnel doesn't know the answer to a question they will either give you false information repeatedly until you call them on it with proof, OR say (and I quote): "I don't know, hopefully you do". They don't bother to find information for you at all. Payroll "forgot" to transfer funds to our 401ks for multiple pay periods, and remedied the situation only after multiple employees noticed their funds were missing. During the acquisition period, entire offices didn't receive paychecks due to delays and healthcare coverage was delayed everywhere else. Future is very "cheap" and doesn't want to foot the bill for even basic programs like MS office. 401K contributions are a 2.5% match up to 6%, less than other companies I've worked for. The NYC office of Future US has unionized and received very little support from management (which makes sense at this point). Future isn't recognizing the union and instead continues to cram too many employees into a tiny office (to save on costs). This means that every square foot of space is occupied, people must share desks (a method called hot desking meaning first come first serve), and there are too many employees to fit into the office at one time, so there is a work from home system so as to not upset the fire code. It's absolute chaos. I don't recommend working for this company. My family and friends are shocked I still work here, considering the sheer number of snafus that have happened. The environment is too unpredictable and you'll receive very little support.

      avatar
      Future Response
      7y
      Thank you for taking the time to leave a review of Future plc. We appreciate your feedback as it enables us to learn and evolve as a company. As you know, Future originated in the UK. Although we always had a small presence in the US, we grew exponentially in 2018 with multiple business acquisitions as well as new hires joining the business directly. With growth comes challenges, but also new opportunities to become a fully unified team and to learn from our new colleagues. We recognize that the changes over the past year have been significant, for the staff who have been acquired and need time to familiarise themselves with new ways of working, and for those who have been with Future for a long time. With 400 people affected, we knew it would be difficult to get everything right at the start. However, we believe most of the issues are one-off decisions or actions that were the result of acquisition. And our intention to bring all the employees together into the Future business has always been a positive one. We are aware there are areas that require improvement and we are committed to working with our employees and managers to make these happen. For example, we recently conducted a survey to all Future US employees to better understand the pain points and areas for improvement. We've set up office committees with the intention of bringing about positive changes, and focuses for 2019 includes the learning and development of our employees. We are also conducting a review of our office space allocation to ensure we have a work environment that is optimal for all. Our People & Culture team is available and appreciates the valuable input employees provide to enhance our lives at Future. We are committed to our US operations and employees, and will continue to double down on our people and our efforts. Please reach out to the People & Culture team at peopleandculture@futurenet.com if you would like to discuss further; we welcome your input.
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      Glassdoor has 789 Future reviews submitted anonymously by Future employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Future is right for you.