I’m one of the many employees acquired from Hibu’s “merger” with RevLocal back in August of 2024. This merger was sold like a true merger, but it was nothing more than a crummy deal made by a couple of wealthy businessmen. Businessmen who swore on their graves they’d never sell the company. But they did. At first, we all thought this would mean better opportunities and pay, but no. It was quite the opposite. It ended up being a total loss of company culture. Our company was a very sociable place that listened to its employees and welcomed feedback without retaliation. We had regular meetings with little talent shows and we got to meet other employees from all over the company.
Now, work has gotten to be quite boring and micromanaged. I’m trying to find the right words to describe it without going on and on, and that’s extremely hard. But I’ll try.
From healthcare benefits to the ways in which our managers communicate, nobody in the Columbus office has a reason to love their jobs anymore. While the price of high-deductible insurance offered is really low, it comes with an impeccably low number of in-network providers among other issues. This has been terrible for people with preexisting conditions who’ve needed to switch providers and perhaps come off certain medications due to lack of coverage.
When it comes to communication, things get very messy. At RevLocal ALL meetings were either in-person or online with a cameras ON policy. Now, meetings are all through Teams with cameras OFF. You’re in a little session with coworkers across three offices and a manager or two who just talk at you. Topics are usually related to whatever is annoying the manager. If you ask any questions, you get shut down or laughed at. It’s really degrading! It’s just about listening to their small POV that protects their questionably bad product. Meetings should never be a checklist of things to go over, but a chance for people to come together to discuss things. I get that the teams are much larger at this company, but that’s also an issue. No company should have teams with 30 people who never see each other’s faces! Sometimes, people in the Columbus office will joke that their coworkers in other offices are “bots.”
Going back to product-related things, their work is bad. If you were a small business looking for digital marketing services, would you trust Hibu if you saw their website and TikTok videos? Probably not! The only reason they have as many clients as they do is because they have an aggressive sales team. Their own business website is cluttered and not designed in a way that’s intuitive or visually consistent. The websites we build for clients are the same way. Their TikTok content is low-key embarrassing and the only followers they have are people who work at Hibu (who were bribed with small Amazon gift cards to do so). And just so you know, they will never take any feedback from bottom line people that might improve their product. They will continue to make decisions from top to bottom.
And one last thing about product development before we move on to the worst part about working here: all RevLocal domains have been transferred. We live in a world where it’s hard for web creators to get employment at better companies without a portfolio. You can’t even make a portfolio with the better RevLocal websites you made cause they no longer exist. Bet the CEO read that and smiled cause it means we’re stuck here for a while.
Here’s the worst part! They company isn’t very social at all. RevLocal was a place where people became friends. It was so crucial for our culture because work takes up 40 hours a week. But Hibu almost doesn’t want people to socialize. It loves to see people isolated in cubicles twice a week. I get that they might want work-life balance to be honored, but there’s not much time out of work for people to make friends in other spaces. All of my adult life friends are thanks to my time at RevLocal.
