Cherry Advertising Reviews

Hi there, I wanted to reach out to cover a number of points you have raised in your feedback so that anyone else reading this can appreciate there are two sides to what you have said. Employee Recognition – we have a recognition programme in place where employees are recognised quarterly as well as annually. This extends across the whole company to recognise an individuals achievement and potential and those who progress and get promoted are very happy with it. Last year we promoted 30 people based on merit, all of whom are happy with the programme we have. Lack of team structure – We have different departments working under a cohesive structure with a department head for Account handling, Digital, Studio, HR, Creative and Copy. That feeds into the senior management and the executive board. Lack of company and department policies – We have numerous company policies, which are available to everyone on the company sever. No working from home policy – we have had a working from home policy in place since May 2018. If someone has a role that involves liaising or co-ordinating numerous tasks on a daily basis or someone needs equipment that we provide in the office, those people work in the office but we do have a WFH policy that allows people to work from home. We actually find that most people prefer to work in the office because of the camaraderie there is and they enjoy the team spirit. Not really an open environment where you can express your concerns and management are not open to suggestions – we completed a full company employee engagement survey in November last year in which all employees could, anonymously, provide suggestions for improvements. Interestingly the availability of fruit that you mentioned was introduced at the rest of staff as was healthcare, travel insurance for all, summer working hours, flexible working hours. Clearly we can’t introduce or adopt every suggestion people make but we have various management committees who consider all the requests that are made and decide on the merits of each. Constant lack of staff so not really any support – we currently have nearly 100 full time employees and will always recruit when necessary if additional support is required. Similarly, we regularly use freelancers to cover holidays/projects when needed and where’s there is a genuine need we always hire freelancers. Sickness is always an issue – we have a sickness policy in place, which is much more generous than the statutory minimum required and 99% staff over the last 15 years have not had any issues with our policy. Thank you, Cherry

Hi there, We’re glad to hear that you think our staff are great, we do too! I would like to address a couple of the points you’ve raised in your feedback. Staff retention issues – our headcount grew by 42% last year, and we are anticipating similar growth in 2020. Yes, people have left too but the overall number for a company our size it is less than the industry average. We don’t expect everyone to stay forever and are quite opened about why some people leave and some people stay, but we have a high retention rate and many have been here over 5 years. Training of staff – we implemented agency wide training at the start of 2019 and all managers and senior leaders have management training. In fact, in our employee engagement survey last year, 95% of employees felt they were offered training to further themselves professionally. Also, it’s important to highlight that just because someone has received the training doesn’t mean automatic promotion. The training is to help the individual develop their skills but it is still down to the individual to show they have acquired those skills and capable of performing at a higher level. Our appraisal process – we have two formal appraisals per year. Our employees take ownership of this process and are asked to provide feedback on how they feel they have performed, what they’ve enjoyed, any feedback they would like to give Cherry and also what they feel they would need to further support themselves in terms of development. Only in instances of under performance would this process not be followed. Also, we always ask for both the views of people who work in more senior positions and those that work in junior ones too. Feedback is not solely based on senior people and taken from the wider agency staff not just from within one’s team. Of course there are occasions when someone isn’t happy with the feedback they receive but based on it coming from a wide catchment of people, both senior, junior and from a number of departments, we have found it is a fair way of ascertaining someone’s performance. Thanks, Cherry