-- Decisions are solely top down. The majority are made by three people who have no idea how things work and use what experience they have from previous, most established companies to force decision adherence. The rest of the organization will then scramble and waste enormous sums of money trying to accommodate. About half of those projects will then be abandoned when the next fire happens. The idea that "good ideas come from everywhere" does not exist here. Have a great idea? It *may* be highlighted for a couple minutes in the weekly All-Hands and then nothing will change as people chase the latest fire.
-- Marketing leadership has no power. Business units tell them to jump and they ask how high. Favoritism within department (and company) runs rampant. Those with the best education are given priority. If you are lucky, you’ll be on the inside. Most never make it. Good news is that those on the outside make friends to deal with the unhappiness.
-- Silos as far as the eye can see. Three groups may be working on the same solution and not know about it until significant amounts of money have been wasted. You have heard of “not invented here” syndrome? Now apply that within a company but between departments. Seems people don’t share what they learn for fear of being made obsolete or perhaps to spite others. More key-person dependencies than other place I have worked.
-- Truly cutthroat environment. There are some NASTY people who work at SoFi and feel that they need to be mean in order to get things done (one of those people is a member of the three decision makers mentioned earlier).
-- Recently had a round of layoffs and none of the dozen or so employees I talked with mentioned that performance was brought up during their termination. SoFi failed to mention anything about performance. In fact, one individual here recently got a pay raise and was then laid off.
So while they may think it saves the company from outsiders thinking their business is at risk, it prompts current employees to lose trust in leadership likely leading to an exodus of those not impacted, severely hinders the ability of those let go from finding new roles after being labeled under-performers, and guarantees that candidates will hesitate before taking a recruiting call with them.
*How companies handle letting staff go sheds light on whether or not a company values their team.*
