Lower reviews

I have wanted to leave a review as a current employee but due to how specific I am going to be , I always feared retribution for my words. However, as of today a handful of people in operations were let go due to "the market" and the "over hiring" that took place in 2021 or so that was the explanation given to some. This cycle of hiring and laying off, has been happening every couple of weeks at Lower. Anything that you see online via any social media posts or 3rd party surveys indicating this place is "best place to work" is all façade. Lower portrays having a pool table and shuffle board makes them a great place to work. The upper management at Lower could not be more disconnected with their employees. Let me give you a quick example. About a year ago all employees were advised that there was a BIG company announcement they wanted to share! They brought all employees outside of the building where they had balloons, music and glasses of champagne (at 9am in the morning). The announcement was to inform all employees Lower had secured a record breaking funding round from this fancy silicon valley investor firm. Verbatim, the CEO stood on a stage and told everyone how happy we should be for Lower getting this money and how lucky we are to be apart of this moment. I wish I had a video camera in this moment because everyone (not standing in the front row) stood around confused questioning what was happening. The CEO didnt bring us out here to tell us something like "hey we got this investment and we are going to give back to our employees" etc.. The CEO brought us out there to tell us how lucky we were to work for Lower and how great things were going to be in 2021. By great, what he really meant was lack of planning and execution that would lead to the most over hiring and firing cycle I have ever seen within a company. While other companies here in Columbus are doing great things for their employees and giving back more than ever. Lower would rather all employees know "just how great we have it here." Here was my operations experience and ill also provide some feedback for HR at the end when for when they read this. From the first moment I started in operations with Lower, I could tell there were going to be major issues. All employees in my training class, and i mean ALL of them, were told by a Lower recruiter (i can give you her name if you'd like) that within 3 months in this department we would receive a 10k increase in base salary. I never once received an increase let alone have a discussion about salary OR have any type of constructive conversation about growth. HR sent out a company wide email in Nov of 2021 indicating there would be annual performance review. HR advised the reviews start in NOV however you would need meet with your "manager" about the review until FEB of 2022! As of 2/11/2022 no employee in operations has met with a manager about any type of performance review. Furthermore, HR and "management" terminated employees prior to any type of performance reviews or possible pay increases. IN FACT, HR sent out a company wide email boasting about their new employee benefit programs they were rolling out in 2022. One of their new programs is 8 weeks paid paternity leave for all employees. MULTIPLE EMPOLOYEES that were "let go" in Lowers latest round of lay offs were set to start their new entitled paternity leave in the coming week/months. From personal first hand knowledge, there were employees communicating to managers that they were going to be taking paternity leave, and then days later were "let go." If you are an expecting mother or father i would highly recommend not working here because they will lay you off without notice. This entire situation is by far the most shady and sleezy business practice I have ever seen. Lower should be embarrassed by their actions. Now lets talk about training you will receive or lack there of. From the start of training there was no organization, no leadership and no direction at all on what we should be doing. Showing up Day One, we did not have a manager. After being subjected to by far the worst training process I have ever been apart of, we had to deal with a trainer who would not only go on to bully but would verbally abuse employees while also sending department wide emails slandering and trying to publicly humiliate employees for asking questions during training. During training employees were verbally yelled at on zoom calls by this trainer for things like and I quote "speaking to each other about work outside of work."... you cant make this stuff up.. During my tenure multiple employees were harassed so severely by this trainer that they would experience panic attacks, would cry at their desks or would leave the office for that date entirely. I personally know of two people who quit because of this trainer and multiple others that transferred departments. Over the course of a year multiple employees brought this trainers behavior to "managements" attention. All concerns were either shrugged off or ignored. When I went to manager and asked if i needed to bypass the manager and got to HR with this issue. I was told that "they would look into it further and follow up with me." that was about 4 months ago. No one inside the department ever heard back on this issue and all employees inside the department still experience this hostile working environment daily. Just to clarify for you, I am telling you that Managers know this person treats employees so disrespectfully that they are quitting where they work, and instead of stopping this behavior from taking place, they enable the behavior. There is no type of management structure at Lower and is by far the most confusing work environment you will ever be in. There is one "manager" who over sees maybe 4 if not more different departments. At the conclusion of the training class I attended two individuals with no previous leadership skills and frankly no leadership skills at all, were promoted to what Lower will refer to as a "team lead." I have no idea what this job title means, initially it meant these individuals were going to assist employees with issues they experienced while processing loans. What it turned into was, an odd dynamic of these leads pretending to be your boss when the "real boss" wasn't around. This cycle is still happening as of today 2/11. The real manager who is supposed to be in charge and is supposed to help you build your career and grow within the company is nonexistent. The team leads portray that they are in charge, calling for meetings, speaking negatively and down to you, sending negative emails about errors and issues that are taking place. Never do they assist you. Their titles are a reflection of upper management wanting to pretend to place someone in power, while giving them no power, while "playing" manager when it suits them. If you want any type of growth inside of a company and want to better yourself in the workplace, this is not the place for you. Lastly ill speak about the actual work at Lower and the micromanagement that happens here. I have NEVER experienced the type of micromanagement that you will receive here. You are NOT allowed to send an email without permission. If you type an email on any generic issue and the "team lead" or "manager" doesn't like the verbiage you used, or if a word was misspelled, you would get publicly ridiculed. On a daily basis, our day consisted of getting "in trouble" from an underqualified "team lead". Being summoned to impromptu zoom calls (and i am not exaggerating when i say this) we would get yelled at for "emailing someone without this team leads permission" & "not addressing the person you were emailing." Again these concerns were brought to managers attention and were ignored. They seem to let these underqualified team leads treat employees any way they deem fit. If you want a job where you get yelled out for sending emails and receive no on the job training and have to deal with incompetent & unprofessional team leads. Than this is the job for you!