Biased and Toxic work culture/environment - Anonymous employee Artera Employee Review

At WELL, we accept responsibility for areas where can be better, particularly when it comes to diversity and inclusion. We are in an unprecedented time in the world, and many of us are understanding for the first time the extent to which BIPOCs are discriminated against. Like many others, our eyes have been opened. It is clear that this intern did not experience our culture as inclusive as he or she wanted. Despite that it is only one voice, we are using it as an opportunity to learn and improve. The feedback this individual references was presented to our CEO on the last day of their employment over a year ago, so this person did not have the chance to see our actions put into motion, nor did they have the opportunity to directly see and/or contribute to the positive change since that time. Our response is coming many months after this post because we struggled in balancing our desire to give them (and the entire BLM movement) a voice, while ensuring prospective employees are hearing facts as well as judgements. Many of the claims made by this individually appear to be “worst case conclusions” by an individual who was disgruntled in the workplace. WHERE WE AGREE: Diversity. WELL is not a poster child of representation, we have struggled to recruit BIPOCs particularly in Santa Barbara. We continue to experiment with strategies and have been most successful with hosting diversity events and partnering with HBCU. WHERE WE DISAGREE: Shill reviews. We have never solicited positive reviews from anyone in the company. As with all review sites, what you see on glassdoor represents the extremes. Suppressing feedback. We acknowledged in a past response that we do include standard mutual non-disparagement agreements as part of our severance packages. We have also addressed this with our entire company during a Monday stand-up for complete transparency. Mutual non-disparagement contractually restricts WELL and the former employee from speaking negatively about the other party. While this agreement is required to get paid severance, receiving severance is a choice each individual makes, and allows us to offer compensation above and beyond what is owed to help individuals during their transition. This is standard practice for companies and we think it is a good practice. Correlation between office hours and promotions. WELL handles promotions through a structured performance review process in which HR, the executive leadership team, and managers all calibrate to ensure promotions are equitable across all departments in the company. As in any company, individuals who go above and beyond in their performance advance quicker than those simply doing the minimum. There is no direct correlation between attending the CEO’s office hours and receiving a promotion. Systemic racism. The photograph in question used to be on our careers page, where we (among many other things) touted the benefit of being a dog-friendly office. That picture has since been removed on private request from this reviewer who did not want their picture on our website. The insinuation that we terminated more women and people of color in our January 2019 reduction is a 100% false statement. While in no ways intentional, our diversity actually improved as a result of the reduction. Voluntary turnover. WELL has less than 7% voluntary turnover. The individuals this poster references were a group of interns. Platform for Toxic Culture. This poster recommends a strategy of public condemnation. We do not agree with this approach. We choose to handle sensitive issues privately so we can appropriately teach and coach individuals on the value of playing as a team. Hypocrisy. This individual is referring to a post on our company LinkedIn page on 06/05/2020 in support of Black Lives Matter, where we expressed our solidarity and further committed to matching donations. We ended up donating over $20,000 to BLM causes. We believed it was better to speak and act than stay silent. We accept the challenge by this reviewer to do even better. To this reviewer – we are sorry you didn’t feel heard, and we wish you had the chance to see how much we took your feedback to heart, and the many activities we have already undertaken to become a more representative company. We do not regret posting in support of BLM and we will continue to work towards a more diverse and inclusive workplace. We have room to grow, and we welcome your continued feedback from the periphery.