- The creative people are together in one room, but there is very little collaboration or clarification on projects.
- There is no creative leadership when it comes to pushing limits or taking risks because the CEO and CTO are so highly involved in the creative aspect of the company. They either regularly negate or critically challenge new ideas. From my own firsthand experience, it is off-putting that they are involved so heavily in the creative process, leading staff to feel their professional opinions are not valued or trusted..
- Senior level management does not listen to the concerns of the staff. While this does not apply to every manager, certain higher level creative based managers are especially guilty of this.
- Houzz reviews are the most intense days there. The CTO is emotional and pushes for very long and drawn out responses to negative reviews. Their reasoning is to go through the pain process, whereas the three paragraph long responses are not only defensive, but stressful to produce to his standards. Suing was brought up once in response to a customer complaint.
- There is a LOT of tight control regarding what can be said in general, how things look, how things function on the site, and what can be posted on social media. Sometimes it can feel like control is being taken away from you, despite the company hiring you for your professional position in the first place.
- Due to the lengthy review process and many talking heads at the company, even simple projects can end up taking weeks to months to complete. This can be really draining to only look at the same thing day-in-day-out as you perform menial changes from all the revisions you receive from multiple upper level managers.
- There is no room for upward movement within the creative department and salaries are below standard. This is even assuming you can become salaried, as most team members are stagnated as hourly employees.
- The company has as a history of firing employees for simple mistakes even after they have put in a two weeks notice.
- Voicing your opinion or requesting additional hires to help with a heavy workload has resulted in employees being fired for “insubordination.”
- The company does not offer sick days. You must use your PTO, and if you do not have enough, you will receive a write up for internal use and no pay for the day.
If they believe you are sick enough, dry coughs and allergies included, they have the right to send you home and use your PTO without your consent - as written in the handbook.
- The creative team works in a separate space from the other departments within the company. Because they have a large whiteboard/pallet board wall, espresso machine, camera room and overall creative space they are constantly reminded of how fortunate they are to work at a place that has given them such a space to work in. Upper management has had multiple meetings with staff requiring them to shadow the rest of the company. While this alone isn’t necessarily an issue (and would frankly be a good exercise when on-boarding new hires), this is all happening in conjunction with the following issues:
- The creative team is overworked, so it’s difficult to even carve out time to shadow
other employees
- Other departments have not been given the same orders to shadow the creative
team
- The creative team was deliberately separated from the rest of the company so
they could collaborate without disturbing other departments, yet somehow it is
unacceptable that they are not able to be more social with those same
departments, sending a mixed message to the creative team.
- Ultimately, it feels as if the creative team is somehow being punished because they have easier access to amenities that are available to the entire staff. While prize days are cool, there are questionable feelings on why everyone is not rewarded the same prize since it is a company-wide event. There is a computer generated spinner that draws names, determining the order that employees choose prizes. These range from $200 Amazon gift cards to small gifts like basketballs People who choose a prize last are often disappointed with what’s left over. In my experience, this negatively impacts overall morale.
- Despite the fact that employees are given company laptops, they are not able to work from home. This often includes salaried employees. However, upper management is allowed to leave and return whenever they feel without notice since they'll be on slack.
