Advice from a Former Employee: Run Far Away!
Pros
Not a lot of Pros I can think of, but: • There are remote work options if you express interest in them. • Some of the people are fun to work with as long as they are way below the SLT/VP levels. The closer people get to the CEO here, the more stressful and unpleasant it is to work with them. • The associates at the site-level are usually very sweet, have interesting backgrounds, and you can build lasting relationships if you take the time to get to know them!
Cons
Plenty of Cons! Here are some: • The CEO is money-hungry and does not value his employees. Just another rich white dude who only cares about making money for himself, and an awful one at that who uses fear tactics to get things he wants done. He's also against social change and has a ceo-still-stuck-in-the-80s mindset. Anything that would lift the company up like celebrating International Women's Day or the BLM movement he wouldn't hear of as they were "too political" and couldn't make him money, despite potentially making a difference. • Not all, but a large portion of employees in Senior Leadership are unqualified for their roles and just live to bully their colleagues and get praise from the CEO. Lots of nepotism here - be careful. • The company's internal 4insite software was good & it felt like we were making an actual difference with it until it basically became a requirement of employment that everyone must use it daily to drive engagement of the tool and keep the CEO happy. Again, whatever this dude wants...his minions get it for him on a silver platter, even if it doesn't make sense for some roles. He doesn't get what he wants? Someone gets axed - I've seen it done time and time again. • New positions are created often that don't last longer than 6 months at most, and layoffs without severance or a lot of warning are frequent. May seems to be a common month for this at SBM. • Avoid the Marketing Department at all costs. Job security is unstable, there's obvious conflict of interest/nepotism, and frequent micromanaging behavior despite what the hiring manager(s) may tell you. It sounds good until you're living this hell day-in and day-out and end up loathing some of the people you work with. I've worked in a few different departments at this company, and this is the one I would tape a red flag to. Forget networking & making connections - as soon as you or your role are deemed "unimportant" and no longer a focus for the business, these people dispose of you like you're nothing and you never existed. It's disgusting.
