Settle in for this one, we’ve got a lot to cover.
First and foremost: the company promotes itself as a resource for creating growth and revenue for its clients, but can’t even do it for themselves. Their recent inability to attract new clients or retain old ones led them to lay off 17 employees in one fell swoop, plus a handful of others within the prior weeks. The large amount of people let go have the rest of the staff worried that this is just a first wave of layoffs rather than an isolated incident. Not to mention, the firings were said to be due to budget reasons, but they still currently have several job openings for manager and director positions, along with an opening for a Chief Revenue Officer.
Concerningly, multiple people let go were pregnant, some of them very far along. Now, they have to choose between their severance pay and the right to sue, as signing the separation agreement means giving up the right to seek legal action against the company.
Supposedly, employees chosen for the layoffs were selected based on their utilization levels, which sounds fair until you hear the (very possible) speculation that managers may have been distributing work unfairly to protect some employees at the expense of others. Some of this unfair distribution is in part due to a terrible attempt at integrating legacy agencies together. To Unlock, integration means moving everyone from Teams to Slack or from Google to Microsoft, and that’s it. No efforts made to educate employees on other legacy agencies’ clients, practices, etc.
Senior leadership loves to talk about their vision for the company and how they aim to be consistently voted as a best workplace, but the longer you work there and the more you see, the shadier things start to feel.
The other reviews citing poor pay and a total lack of growth opportunities are absolutely correct. Ask for a raise and the response will be, “we’ll have to see.” That’s the answer you’ll get every time you follow up as well. And forget about a promotion. They’re too busy trying to make the company massive to promote from the inside.
Maybe one day they’ll do better. Onward and upward!