Deveney Communication Reviews

- Severely understaffed. Burnout is inevitable. - Deveney will be your worst client. Ownership suffers from analysis paralysis. It takes months of meetings and revisions for the most mundane and simple of tasks. - President and COO (formerly CFO) are romantically involved, yet completely lack communication in the workplace. Their goals and approaches contradict each other at every turn, and it's up to the staff to manage that communication. Yikes. - COO is a former professor who treats staff like his students. Despite have ZERO marketing experience, he's always sitting with a red pen, waiting to mark up your work and critique your process after the fact. Most employees dread going into his office due to his condescending and blame-fueled tone. - If ownership feels you are weak at a particular soft skill (e.g., email etiquette, conflict resolution, tardiness, etc.) you will be forced to research the subject and give a lunch and learn to the entire team on ways to improve your bad habit. - No room for advancement. The COO changes the position hierarchy on a whim every year to give the illusion of career growth. - Deveney has the highest hourly rate in the market, making it difficult to present fully integrated marketing strategies to prospective clients at a reasonable price. - Low pay

As other reviewers have noted, the CFO and President lack any positive bedside manners. My experiences dealing with them (especially the CFO) were almost always negative and ultimately led me to accept the first job that got me out of Deveney. The CFO also happens to be the director of human resources so you can imagine the difficulty negotiating a raise with the man who also controls the company's bank accounts. My bonuses were always insignificant by any measure (usually less than a normal paycheck), and to make my moral seep even lower, I was told to remain 80% billable even though my plate was overwhelmed with non-billable company promotional work. There's also the company retreat. It's a four day excursion into the boondocks where employees are required to share a bedroom with a coworker (you don't get to choose that coworker), and attend seminars that last hours upon hours. The outcome of the seminars is supposed to be an action plan for the company, but few things beyond material additions to the office itself were ever implemented as a result of any of the findings. One of the seminars is a SWOT analysis where participants shout out the shortcomings of their coworkers in front of the entire company. People cried, people got angry and stormed out, and others refused to speak to their perceived offenders for weeks, months or longer. To sum up, the contradictions, broken promises, lack of decent benefits, forced attendance at a company retreat that accomplished (in my opinion) little other than bitterness among coworkers all add up to a company that was dangerous to my overall mental health.