Run. Anywhere but here… - Anonymous employee Desert Financial Credit Union Employee Review

If you’re considering working at Desert Schools in any back office position here is what you need to know. At one time I’m sure this place had a heart, cared for their employees and took employee complaints about management seriously. Today leaders are allowed to mistreat, target, bully and create a hostile work environment with no consequence. To read more about how the IT department is managed and how the organization and HR have dealt with complaints please read the review titled “Just. Don't.”<br/><br/> If you’re a marketing professional considering employment at Desert Schools please reconsider. The executive marketing leadership in this company is incompetent with no technical, strategic, tactical or applied knowledge of marketing. Instead of innovating, unactionable member data is presented year after year to executive leadership and never applied to any marketing strategies, tactics or plans. The marketing department has no yearly planning, goals, objectives or accountability for its budget or performance; it simply follows the sales goals set at the beginning of year.<br/><br/> For seven years it’s Groundhog Day, throwing away money on banner ads, sending untargeted emails and tripping over each other to understand the basics of SEM, social media, lead generation and branding. Each year the Creative Team is a slave to corporate clients who get what they want no matter how ludicrous, ineffective and despite negative ROI. <br/><br/> The real creativity and strategic effort that comes from this department is met with opposition from the all areas of the business because the executive marketing leadership cannot effectively speak to the strategies directors and senior staff inside the department recommend. This includes baseline strategies like content marketing, inbound marketing and targeted campaigns.<br/><br/> Because of this and because one particular executive marketing leader felt threatened or couldn’t deal with conflict; new talent hired within the past two years has been systematically bullied, targeted and unjustly performance managed out of the organization. These are leaders with mottos such as “Make my life easy and make me look good.”<br/><br/> Over the course of the last year, a large group within the marketing team filed a joint complaint against a member of the executive marketing leadership along with several other individual complaints about this individual. These complaints covered items like lack of communication, favoritism, severe lack of integrity, unprofessional behavior, bullying, targeting individuals and trying to get them fired because they disagree, stripping responsibilities from employees in retaliation, moving groups of people to different floors in retaliation, fits of rage and many other items.<br/><br/> This wasn’t the first time that complaints had been filed against this particular executive leader by marketing employees, it had occurred more than once in previous years. But, despite the continued efforts of the employees to get help and defend against this marketing leader, the situation was swept under the rug and blamed on poor communication. HR provided no relief from the leader's systemic vindictive actions; they handled it casually with no communication or visible consequence. The CEO/President, Executive President and HR allowed this executive marketing leader to continue to destroy morale and target employees for termination.<br/><br/> <strong>The culture:</strong><br/><br/> The organization is sales based; its emphasis is bombarding members with irrelevant product advertising to meet quarterly and yearly goals. Go to any branch and you will see walls, TVs, counters and every corner of the building littered with sales materials. Now go to Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo and see the difference. On top of that you won’t be asked if you want to refinance your car every time you make a transaction.<br/><br/> Desert Schools spent the last two years (and probably a crap load of money) rolling out corporate propaganda called Momentum. On the surface it’s suppose to help the culture be service oriented. It was mandatory for all employees to go through this exhaustive training. The reality is that it didn’t change the culture at all; nobody effectively used the techniques that were taught over the course of 20 hours. When conflict arises, instead of communicating people throw fits, complain and try to get what they want by manipulating their VP. The word “no” is strictly prohibited. <br/><br/> In conclusion, Desert Schools seems to have lost their way. Their reputation was a family oriented workplace that cared about its employees, members and the community. Now they let their employees be mistreated, bullied and unjustly terminated. They put sales goals above member needs. While they still give to the community much of it is stale public relations play lacking the heart that made the organization a part of the community instead of one that exploits it and the people within it.<br/><br/>