-The company lacks a clear vision and purpose. Really, aside from writing curriculum for Primavera, they have never been able to find a stable market for their product. The "future strategy" is constantly shifting, as there is no research and development department to suss out opportunities and act upon them. What’s more, it seems that the owner/CEO is unwilling to commit to any clear, singular strategy. FlipSwitch instead has a tendency to spend massive amounts of time and money trying to please individual clients, who often want something radically different from the product as it was envisioned (ie: printable products rather than online curriculum). Thus, a lot of time and money goes into producing one-offs that do nothing to help drive a focused vision for the company.
-There is virtually zero oversight of individual employees' productivity. On the plus side, this means you will never be micromanaged. On the negative side, it means that some employees get away with doing absolutely NOTHING (dozing off at their desk on the clock, watching NetFlix all day, telling loud and inappropriate jokes) while others who work earnestly and contribute can't even count on the power of yearly or twice-yearly evaluations to help them progress professionally and rise above the fray. Basically, there is no incentive for doing passable work, let alone striving to do great and innovative work.
-Ethics. Primavera makes its money as follows. A public school student opts out of their public school and into Primavera, and the $ that would have been allocated by the state for that student's public education instead goes to Primavera. FlipSwitch writes the curriculum that those students learn from, and Primavera pays FlipSwitch for that curriculum. Given this arrangement, you would think that FlipSwitch would have the discretion to hire curriculum developers (the people who write the curriculum) who have subject matter knowledge equivalent to that of a classroom teacher, right? Not the case. Classroom teachers must be licensed (a process that ensures their credentials match the position they are applying for). However, no such regulation exists for curriculum developers. As such, the person who is writing your child's curriculum for English may, in fact, have a Physical Education degree. Most Ed-Techs are responsible and ethical and hire qualified subject matter experts to guide the creation of curriculum. Not the case here. Why FlipSwitch would deem it acceptable for a professional who wouldn't be qualified to teach in the classroom to write the curriculum that all of Primavera's teachers will use in their classrooms, is beyond me. In fact, it's completely unethical.
-Management does not treat staff professionally, and avoids dealing with tough, but relevant problems. When I worked here, we had hour-long meetings about selecting chairs with the proper ergonomic support. However, when it came to making important decisions about products, management either brushed the questions aside, or made spur of the moment decisions without considering the depth and breadth of the issues at hand. When these concerns were raised by departments or individual employees, they were often regarded as trifling matters, and the employees treated as overreaching naysayers for bringing them up. My sense is that the upper management lacked the know-how as well as the confidence to troubleshoot these issues, and was even, at times, intimidated by the professional expertise and knowledge of the employees who would raise them. What a shame that, instead of drawing on the wealth of knowledge those employees had to offer, the approach was to attempt to stifle them, and then act as though their ideas were somehow illegitimate and irrelevant.
