• Nepotism: The amount of nepotism at Thesis is staggering. I can count at least a handful of individuals in leadership / C-Suite positions that are all there because they were all friends or previously connected somehow, but have close to no experience running a business. Now – plenty of people are successful despite that lack of knowledge, but it’s because they LISTEN. They take advice from people and admit their faults and make changes when necessary and get down on employees’ level. This does not happen here. Concerns are ignored, any kind of accountability attempts are taken personally / badly, and the disconnect between leadership and employees is huge. On one staff call during COVID one of the C-suite individuals commented that ‘you might hear my kid in the background, sorry my au pair is sick today!’ While the rest of us with kids at home struggled to juggle WFH and childcare every. Single. Day. Not everyone ( ie. hardly anyone ) can afford an au pair, especially in the middle of a pandemic. • Thankless / Lack of Opportunity: It's painful how disconnected leadership is from the people who make ( or made ) this agency a success. Thesis was one of the ONLY agencies in Portland that made it through COVID without layoffs or major impacts AND made a huge profit as well. Why? Because of the people making the work. Because of the people who worked long, tireless hours, went above and beyond their job descriptions, and cranked out a shitload of creative / projects. Because those people WANTED to contribute, wanted to double down and make Thesis successful, and dug into the trenches of what WFH while navigating a pandemic was like. Did those people get recognized for it? No. Well, if I guess if you count getting 'a comp day' or a $5 gift card to Starbucks as recognition. Many of those people didn't get promoted, weren't offered growth opportunities, and senior positions were hired on from external candidates despite having wonderful people right in front of them. Thesis rode out a hugely difficult time very comfortably because of the efforts of their employees and those people were taken advantage of. • Over Hiring: Mid-COVID business started to ramp up and we were getting a lot of work, so the knee jerk reaction was to hire. Did we need a few people? Yes. Did we need to go from 120 people to 300+ people? Absolutely not. Concerns were flagged by several people from different departments up to leadership about the impacts of these hiring decisions and SEVERAL different solutions to resourcing needs were offered, but ignored. This was in 2021. Flash forward to present and they're 2 rounds of layoffs in. • Poor / Irresponsible Planning: It's said the new building was paid or partially paid for by an outside source, but still. The optics of laying 120+ people off over less than five months while you build a grandiose new building in slabtown ( and paying rent at the current building ) are bad at best. Several of these people that were laid off moved their entire life to Portland and you're telling me you couldn't have seen that being impacted a few months after they arrived? • DEI / Equity: Thesis touts their attention and commitment to DEI / equity ( and B-Corp ) status, but it doesn’t match with what is actually happening. The internal ERGs ( employee resource groups ) are used as a performative section on the website and not supported at all internally. Anything needed for the ERG ( design, project management, writing, etc ) has to be provided out of employee’s own time ( often after hours ) and they are not compensated or supported for it. They promise to hire BIPOC individuals – and while they’ve made good efforts lately – the lack of representation in senior positions / leadership is striking and anytime anyone tries to hold those in leadership accountable for it they are reprimanded and permanently held back from success / advancement at the company. Leadership prefers to plug their ears and keep walking.
