Intercom reviews about "manager"

- Intercom seems to have moved into a "Finite" mindset, where they are making choices based off of immediate payoff, instead of looking into the future. - The sales team received Command of the Message training in Q1 2020, but its no longer reinforced, and no one seemed to really care. - There are a few SDR managers (not the BD manager), that just don't really seem to care about the people on their team. They seem to just care about the numbers, and they care about you "falling in line." The managers will pit the SDR's against each other to try to "out do" the others, which frankly is just toxic, and also goes against the whole "we are a team" mentality. - Allow there is a very well developed inner brand while working there, it doesn't feel like the employees are driven towards a "cause" - it doesn't feel like the work is bettering the world. It used to, but when I left there was tension everywhere and a lot of people were leaving - to go work other places that did have a more defined "cause" to fight for.

Leadership and Individual Contributer alignment has slowly declined altogether. There are multiple teams that are severely understaffed and operating extremely thin during the pandemic while Engineering teams are consistently prioritized. Company culture thrives in office. When the company is remote, team culture is up to the manager. Unfortunately if you included in a team that has a manager that has not interest in fostering team spirit and collaboration, you will be siloed in your work (and its not like anyone will listen to your cries if brought up to leadership).

I don't have any cons for now!

Having read through the other reviews below, some of the things that resonated with my own experience: - Your experience outside of Intercom is not considered or valued as 'real' experience, and your expertise will be treated just as same as someone with no experience in the area you work. This is a company that has grown quickly from being a start up , so there are managers who have been promoted without any experience in specialist areas, just opinions. Opinions and experience are given equal value. - Processes haven't really developed beyond start-up. So for a company with close to 700 employees, this doesn't work. You will read in responses to reviews that much of the feedback is put down to 'growing pains' - however the company takes a long time to take any action to rectify those pains. Employee feedback from a year ago is still being 'worked on' - with plans shelved ahead of another round of employee feedback to see if people still feel the same way. - Growth is not always encouraged. This is my own experience here, where career growth discussions were actively avoided by manager, and then was told in no uncertain terms that my role would only grow if the team got bigger. I'm sure this isn't the same in every team, but in more specialist areas don't expect to grow your career quickly at Intercom.

*Intercom is great at underpaying overqualified workers. They give you the title of support specialist rather than product specialist, which is what is really required of the role. This seems intentional to drive down your market value. *KPIs are crucial to your success, though they are often arbitrary. You will have weekly meetings with managers where you will look in detail as to how you can improve your work. *As support, you will be at the bottom of the ladder at Intercom. Executives will pay little attention to your org. *There is very little opportunity for career pathing. You can become a tier two support specialist or a support engineer. Very difficult to become manager or to get out of the support org. *This is not a 40 hours a week job. You are paid hourly, but you will almost always work overtime without ever seeing overtime wages. *Get ready for more meetings than could possibly be beneficial to your work. *They have a strangely backwards outlook towards remote work.

I have experienced more burnout this year than I have probably ever experienced in my career. While many parts of the company are probably great places to work, the part of the org I am in isn't a good place to be at all right now (even discounting other factors due to Covid-19 etc). Despite crystal clear signals in terms of low engagement for this pocket of the company on recent engagement surveys, as well as direct written feedback representing the wider team being bubbled up to leaders/managers outlining the core problems (constant high pressure to deliver and keep others unblocked regardless of capacity or quality/process concerns, very unclear how to progress on the career ladder in practical terms, etc), combined with exit interview feedback from recent departures—leadership seem to be very slow to act in ways that represent genuine understanding/desire to change, or that actually stand a chance of making it better for the people who are being messed around while remaining under pressure. Seems like there is low trust from leaders/managers that people below them are capable, so in this part of the company at least, there is tons of scrutiny over work that frankly leaders shouldn't need to have input into/approval over. This in turn ends up killing almost all sense that there's any space or room for people to grow, progress, move up the career ladder and take on increased responsibilities. Instead, leaders dangle high profile projects as opportunities for people to prove themselves, but then load teams and people up with additional pressure and responsibilities. When people (unsurprisingly) struggle to deliver on the balance across multiple asks, it's framed as poor performance rather than poor management. Lip service is paid to making improvements, and there is some evidence that movement is starting in positive directions (full credit to the people driving that, but it isn't coming from the leaders!), however it all feels like too little too late after a range of crappy decisions/management choices from leaders in 2020.

I've been at Intercom for a few years now and am slowly becoming more and more disappointed with the lack of DEI in the support leadership team. There is only one woman in the director team (who isn't even a director) + one poc. I even heard a homophobic remark from a support leader and when I tried to submit an anonymous complaint, they asked for my phone number which is the opposite of anonymous. This isn't a pervasive issue but we have not improved and have actually regressed in this space. There is potential to get better though it just needs more attention at the executive level. without being able to submit an anonymous complaint i hope this review helps just the same

*Quality, experience-driven POVs are drowned out with prolific low caliber opinions-- and management has genuine difficulty deciphering which is which *People who stick around are those that don't stick their necks out to make the work better. THOSE neck sticker-outers do up the game for a moment... before they mysteriously disappear. If you join, best to stay cool and collected in observation mode for as long as possible while contributing just enough/ at the minimal level of expected value for your role if you want to stick around. *For a startup, there are a surprisingly large number of "do-nothings" that clog the pipes, slowing things down and somehow, as long as they are not "making waves", not being held accountable (and stay on the payroll- for YEARS). *Churn, churn, churn- It's been tricky getting meaningful work done around here simply due to the effect of the constantly revolving door/ poor retention * Once you have been deemed out of step with the hyper passive, conflict-avoidant culture, you will not be around much longer, deemed "Not a fit!". And no, your manager will not work with you to tune your approach to a more Dublin-inspired tune over time... they opt instead for the culturally easier "catch and release" approach to talent rather than a culturally incongruent "catch, inculcate and ADAPT" approach (which would be urgently necessary for transforming into/ building a truly stellar marketing org).