Part and Sum-one kill me - Anonymous employee Part and Sum Employee Review

Thank you for the feedback. I appreciate the positive call-outs, especially about the “smart and passionate teammates”, I know the team appreciates that. We agree with you that Part and Sum’s unique vision can be achieved and we’re making great headway. I’m unhappy that your time with us left you wanting. Julie and I work hard to do our best to live up to the values we subscribe to, but I imagine that doesn’t offer much solace when that is not how you experienced our leadership. It also upsets me that we couldn’t find solutions together or stay more positively connected. Unclear expectations: Being a service business, we offer clients the expertise of our team members. We believe in empowering the team to do what will best drive the client business forward. This autonomy can be uncomfortable at times. We continue to look for better ways to keep the positive aspects of this autonomy, but balance it with support from the rest of the team and leadership. One change we made in 2018 was to provide every retainer account with two people, a Strategist and a Technologist. Along with improving our offering, this change has helped make expectations and responsibilities more clear. We’ve also learned that to be a good fit for our team one needs to be genuinely excited to own outcomes… energized when they are able to push decision making and impact our clients business. We have determined ways to interview for this touch of an entrepreneurial spirit along with the skills we look for. Constructive criticism for leadership: I personally found this hard to accept, as someone actively pushing myself to grow (why I started Part and Sum in the first place), I didn’t want to believe that I wasn’t open to challenges and criticism from you, but perhaps I wasn’t. It can also be hard for a team member - especially at a small firm - to feel free to give critical feedback to the leader or owner of that firm. After your review, Julie and I brought in an outside party to collect and synthesize anonymous feedback from the team. This feedback showed us that we need to focus on improving in several areas. The most important is providing positive feedback more frequently. We are also working on more proactively vocalizing when priorities change and creating a safe place for people to go with concerns (especially given we are married). This feedback is super helpful and we’ll collect it regularly moving forward. Bullying: Feedback and growth sound nice when it is happening in the abstract or that feedback is for someone else. However, when the feedback concerns a significant gap in skills or effort, it doesn’t always feel good. “Blaming the staff and expecting us to suggest solutions,” is one way to perceive this, but I prefer to frame it as inviting other perspectives, ideas, and collective ownership as a small team for how to solve important challenges. Compensation: We pride ourselves for offering competitive salaries as a small business. Compensation is based on a variety of factors including performance and expertise. We believe strongly in sharing in the firm’s success as we grow. This is why we offer a bonus plan based on profitability, a newly rolled out 401k, and we will offer all employees a path to ownership after our second year as a firm (2019). We’re completely transparent with employees about the business finances outside of individual team members salaries. Vacation policies: We offer flexible time off. We expect the team to take time off. We have Company Holidays. We also have a few “on call in case of emergency” Company Holidays (for example, Black Friday, given our many ecommerce clients). We allow WFH days when they make sense. The details of our time off and WFH policies are clearly outlined in our employee handbook. We are big believers in helping every employee find a sustainable pace. Unlike the culture at many agencies, working at night or on the weekend is uncommon here. I want to stress that Julie and I are 100% dedicated to building Part and Sum for the long-term. Over the short time we’ve been around, I’ve learned that you can’t stay in business if you don’t actively listen and evolve. So thank you again for leaving this review. I hope it makes us better for current and future team members.