1. Inconsistent policies: Be it a priority list of projects or pay cuts - this place is all about top management's mood swings, random fad following and more, more moody outbursts.
- A list of tasks prioritized at the beginning of a month changes at least twice by end of 1st week! Accordingly imagine about your goals, KRAs, target metrics etc. Talk about being dynamic and fast-paced!
- While you are coping with the ad hoc requirement changes, arbitrary “value additions” are done to mushrooming teams – and then you get to deal with a fresh batch of preposterous “managers” (don't have a clue about what you do, but they will talk more about it that you ever will) who will add some more unwanted drama to your already entertaining “work”.
- The absolute least a company can do is listen to real customer feedback and respond through improved products and processes. In this regard, Droom has confused the definition of "customer" with that of "investor".
- You are asked to mandatorily share daily/weekly status on owned projects (don't be surprised if hourly is there as well) - but that's just to irk you off a lil bit more, as no one really bothers to open/check the "urgently required" status updates, ever. Not much surprising, given that the motto preached (& ideally to be followed) here is “overcommunication is the key, while actual work is expendable”.
- Hiring/Retention/Firing policies follow the VUCA principle, and are subject to the mood swings mentioned above, and not actually requirement/situation-driven.
- *Special mention: Appraisal cycles – Count the WA messages you’ve responded to. None? Well, try better next time. How about your participation in the regular “clap & appreciate the top management” sessions? Not great? Okay, same for your appraisal then! Because your actual work, achievements and efforts will go unnoticed, and every irrelevant bit will be monitored and scrutinized by the people actually doing your appraisal (reporting manager is just a term here BTW).
-*Special mention: HR deptt. – Take a bow dear HR (before you copy paste the standard reply text below this review about how employees read the Droomy vibe wrongly). This department does everything other than people management (read arrangement for parties, herding reluctant people towards parties, giving off the vibe that employees should be grateful to have a job there and arranging regular Zumba sessions etc.) and will floor you with their incompetence. Can’t blame them though, they are getting as many threats of ATL in a month as you might get in 6 months!
2. ZERO respect for employees’ work-life balance: This place will remind you of a sugarcane juicing machine – and sadly the lifeforce extracted out of you will go down the drain, rest assured. WhatsApp will become the bane of your life (I didn’t realize that the App was meant for official communications at 2AM) and also be prepared to flood your own FB wall reluctantly with company posts, and to feel threatened to mandatorily attend PARTIES (and there are scores of them here of course).
3. ZERO respect towards employees: Will you pay back the salary credited to your account previously, after being humiliated amidst your colleagues and shoved out (sometimes physically) from office premises? Well you are asked to! So kindly think about it, because you might also get served a legal notice for that!! You can get fired by not responding to WA text messages within 10 minutes (hey, your online presence will be monitored whether you have the “last seen” feature on or not), by not attending parties or forgetting to RSVP etc., and you can be put on performance improvement plans whether you have joined the place a month back or you got a promotion last month (and then they forget to track the said performances BTW. Read the HR paragraph above)…. and God forbid if you just want to just attend office and get your work done – that right there is a cardinal sin!
4. Reward good performers? What performance in which party you talkin’ about??
So there’s the standard definition of performing at Droom, seriously. On a different note, if you are thinking about your work related performance, well – every project will have your name on it if you’ve delivered one successfully, because some manager is surely going to blurt to himself/herself – “Oh, this one person actually works! So why bother training others or motivating others to work as well…. (that’s my actual KRA though as a manager :/ )…. Let’s burden this one miracle worker with everything else! After all, proven track record!”. And hence, either you will face burnout, or you will switch teams (the true party performers) – all thanks to good leadership.
Finally, before you make a decision about joining the happening place publicized widely via various entertainment channels through paid/self-published content, please gather sufficient information from current as well as former employees, check the attrition rates, change patterns in leadership group, general customer feedback about the functioning of this company and its future prospects!
