- Tech is losing ground in the market. There are a few reasons I feel this has happened:
* Several large ventures were made that ended up not panning out. Being the best in one area does not lend to a full understanding of other areas and trying to own the narrative when the product falls short of competitors doesn't always work.
*Management can be very set on what they want to do even given ample evidence that it's not working. On one hand I understand, employees can give a lot of feedback, some not great about what customers need but when it's overwhelming and for years, not listening becomes silly.
*For a while the "sales story" became more important than having the tech knowledge and focus needed to innovate and develop the products. Having a heavy sales investment helped bring in money in the short term but long term left a lot of tech debt and areas where competitors could start grabbing customers. Have an older flagship product doesn't help this either.
*Overall Apple Decline/relationship. Apple has really lost ground in the EDU market to Chromebooks and while in enterprise iPhones are doing well and Macs are doing ok, that will likely change over the years as students who are comfortable with Chromebooks don't want to pay 2-4x more for an Apple Device and companies will probably support this.
*Also Apple is very difficult for any company to work with. They are well known for providing free or better/discounted in-product versions of what other companies develop first meaning that companies need to put a lot of money into new development because some products could be rendered worthless within a few years of launch as Apple adds things that seem popular into their own product. Even companies that partner closely with them can be pushed out or last minute surprised by the moves they make. Or the opposite can happen, where critical things are ignored for 5+ years. Even basic information that would make everyone's lives easier can be denied "because we're Apple"
*Smaller competitors don't have to be profitable. I do acknowledge that in the tech world, smaller competitors don't need to really be profitable for a long time which can be hard to fight off as an established public company. They can give things away for free to gain customers, while Jamf legally has to make money for investors.
-Senior Management doesn't know how to connect with employees
*Senior management was never perfect but was generally heartfelt and understanding toward day-to-day employees and what they were facing in their lives. They weren't giving employees everything but knew how to empathize and explain things in a way folks could understand and it built a lot of trust between employees and upper management. Somewhere along the way we lost that and it became jarring with the new CEO. Decisions were made not based on facts but panicked feelings.
RTO is a great example. Previously we were told company-wide by upper management that no RTO was planned in the future "We are a remote first company!" and then within 6 months were given I think less than 2 months of warning to come back to the office for 3 days a week starting in June. Parents with kids old enough to be semi-independent but young enough that they couldn't be left alone all day (which is a good portion of the employees) panicked because they had very little time to find daycare and handle the expense of daycare before they had to return to the office. Management's initial response? "It's not RTO, RTO is 5 days a week, we just want you back for 3!" "Use your village! You've got friends and family- have them watch your kids!" Or even "I remember what it was like, I had to pick up my kid sometimes!" Employees were confused and asked why, previously they were told they had never been more productive when working remote and suddenly management was saying that the science wasn't important, but they needed folks to come back in for the "connection". Even when their teams weren't based out of a nearby office. Even when they'd be in remote meetings in the office all day. The "connection" requirement was still pushed to come in. I personally think the management we have in place just wants to feel more in control of the situation and employees and felt bringing them back in the office was the best way to do that. Back to the "good" days they understood so to speak. Or they wanted people to feel like they should quit if they couldn't move. I don't know that anyone was directly fired for being too far from an office but there were certainly fears that in office folks would receive better attention and perks than the remote folks. Some folks even pay on their own dime to travel and attend meetings (including flights). To be transparent, management did change their minds and push back RTO to Sept when kids would be back in school so parents had time to make arrangements but at first it was fought and it's wild to me that it wasn't even a consideration to them. Many of them don't have young children anymore or have a stay at home spouse or live in nanny so I guess maybe it wouldn't.
*Senior management doesn't listen well to employees and often doesn't take accountability for decisions that directly impact employees. Employees have long told management what the failings of our products are. JSI needs to be able to report usage. Protect needs better/easier integration. Trials and onboarding are a struggle. Some products and updates don't work well together. Even on the sales side, many AEs and middle managers express concerns about initiatives that go unheard by management until the time to pay comes and suddenly "the math doesn't make sense-we're not paying that" even when the numbers are very close to what was explained to them when they first announced it. Even worse, they don't tell the employees, they push it to middle management - the folks that presented all these concerns in the first place "to handle it". Then in the next all company meeting express how hard the teams have been working and doing a great job selling the thing that they decided not to pay them for. The complete lack of accountability tells employees that they can expect it to happen again. Honestly it feels like they want to force out sales at this point. It's not that previously they didn't make any mistakes, they were just better at owning them, often paying them out and correcting for them in the future rather than retroactively changing all the rules just before it becomes a full legal case. In this last case, I'm almost certain they planned to pull back that pay for months before they announced it which breaks so much trust. *Management has also been known to hide from employees, pushing employees to attend in person meetings while attending remotely themselves, sometimes even from somewhere else in the same office. I've seen small ways this is improving with management starting to attend small "feel good events" to try to build trust and more upper management attending big meetings in person but it's a lot of trust to have to build back up. I understand that layoffs are needed sometimes but I feel they could have been done with a lot more grace, thanking employees for their work rather than pushing them out the door and telling employees that it was just business and if we don't like it then leave, or quietly cutting teams and hoping no one notices. This last round was done a bit better, explaining things but still was hard to listen to people being let go as a cost-cutting move to better invest in other strategies. It's hard to hear that the folks let go didn't do anything wrong, were working hard at what they were given until the end but the company wanted to go a different direction and save money doing it. It's hard to hear that "we're still a growing company" when I feel that a good portion of that growth was likely savings due to layoffs. It also doesn't seem like our upper management trusts our CEO to answer questions and will often talk in his place during harder questions that don't seem like they are cherry picked beforehand. I won't say that management doesn't listen at all - there were improvements to support (at least prior to the current software change) that were positive but it felt like a long time coming.
*In the past management has also blamed the downturn in culture on employees, insisting it's bottom up when truly it's always been more top down. Both sides have to play their part. A lot more effort has to come from the bottom to maintain culture when the top isn't putting in a lot effort and impossible if the top has better things to do. You can't say our culture is great and then not take actions that follow that culture.
-Pay is on the low end - was justified by benefits and culture which is not what it was. Jamf never paid the standard rates for the roles and for most folks that was fine. Having flexibility, good benefits, good leadership, and a solid product was worth the pay cut. However the non-money things are easier to take away. We will be back in the office 3 days a week now which isn't in itself terrible but the expectations and changes to those expectations were. Benefits have slowly decreased and increased in price. Leadership trust has been broken and we just aren't keeping up with the tech to keep competitors out. Honestly, I'm nervous we're being set up to be sold.
-Some Roles cannot leave for the day - some roles are not set up for someone to be able to go home at the end of the day, much less take time off. Expectations and goals are high and salaried employees who are scared and need to keep their job for their families no longer have an off switch for work. They are taking their jobs home with them and have little to no real coverage when they finally do take PTO so they just have more work waiting for them when they get back. Mentally, it can become a lot for what seems like not enough pay or at the sacrifice of a peaceful home life. Previously, it wasn't perfect but boundaries were encouraged for a work/life balance, now , well, it's on you if you don't make it. If you can't afford to take that time off, I guess you shouldn't.
In the end, the lack of trust in management and tech falling behind along with overworking due to layoffs Jamf culturally and financially is likely in a hard place right now. Job security just doesn't feel present. I truly like the company and the people there so I hope they can turn things around for the better soon. I hope the investments in education pan out. I don't think it's a terrible place to work as of yet at least but you need to go in understanding that there are some serious issues you may have to live with. I truly hope it gets better.
