LiveStories reviews

Unfortunately getting hit with Lay offs

For anyone considering going to work here, let me give you some insight: This was the most inept ‘leadership’ group I ever worked with. ‘Leadership’ was a good ole boy network made up of pals who knew one another while working together at Microsoft, or a relative to a ‘leader’ in the company. This company has ZERO infrastructure built up to run the company effectively. Sad thing is, the products could take off under the right leadership and the engineering team building the products is top notch, but this company is a sinking ship. Let me offer 10 examples of why it would be a horrible idea to go to work here: ‘Leadership’ conveys misleading information - Example: In October, there was an All Hands meeting held where updates were given on the previous quarter’s performance. Earnings were off by multiple millions of dollars, yet the CEO told everyone not to worry because he felt they structured the earnings incorrectly and felt confident things would turn around by the next quarter. Fast forward to December and a call was led by the CEO where 1/3 of the company was laid off! They didn’t even make it through the next quarter before drastic action had to be done! When a layoff happened, they performed a cattle call layoff - T-A-C-K-Y!!! They didn’t even have the decency to call each person 1:1 to tell them in person they were being laid off! This was only ~50+ people. Chaos ensued on the call from many who were upset and it was extremely horrible way to relay information to a multitude of people. On top of that, the layoff occurred three weeks before Christmas!!! They didn’t even have the decency to let people stay employed through the holiday season - they cut their income right before the holidays. How thoughtful. If you were part of the good ole boy/girl network - a ‘leader’ who worked with other ‘leaders’ in some capacity during a prior time at Microsoft or a relative to a ‘leader’ - than you were untouched from being laid off. You were spared being cut no matter how ineffective a worker you were or how much money you made, simply because you were part of the chosen ones. ‘Leaders’ have zero experience on how to build the infrastructure of the company. There were multiple times the SVP skipped over his Directors to ask me about building out an organization. I obliged and gave him effective strategies, yet was one of the ones ‘leadership’ felt should be laid off while the Directors remained. ‘Leaders’ stressed that the customer-facing employees use slides and agendas to run meetings, yet their meetings were delivered with randomness, with NO slides, and rarely left you feeling like you are taking anything away that was going to help strengthen the organization, let alone the company. Sales is not an important organization to ‘leadership’. The inability to capture why an earnings target was missed by multiple millions of dollars shows they do not have a pulse on what Sales was doing, did nothing to help them adjust to meet the targeted goals nor have a plan in place to execute to get the targeted earnings they expected. There is little respect for ‘leadership' in general. Even for the ones still there and before layoffs ever happened, the lack of faith in the chosen ones put in place to ‘lead’ the company ran rampant. They were laughed at more than revered. They keep past brand names around, which confuses customers and has them question who they really are. They were once Geocko, then they were LiveStories, now they are FORWARD Platform. Pick a name and stay with it and eliminate the others. I’ll be curious to see what they change their name to in 2025. Silos are everywhere! Each organization within the company works in their own silo and collaboration occurs at a minimum. I’m sure that’s what contributed to sales not coming through. No one knows what the other teams are doing! All hands meetings go over numbers - there’s no insight into how groups should work together to be more successful. The CEO is not a CEO, but an Engineer who had a great idea that doesn’t know how to execute it. He finds friends to ‘lead’ the company instead of real leaders who could really take the company places. I gave this company a 1 because it was the lowest rating available for choosing. That’s being complimentary. They deserve lower.