Traumatic is an understatement - Digital Marketing SQ Digital Employee Review

Thanks for taking the time to write this review. I imagine it couldn't have been easy for you to write about what must have been a less than positive experience for you at SearchQuest. I assume it must have been some time ago, maybe even over 5 years, as the business I now run doesn’t resemble anything like what you’re describing. From what I understand, SearchQuest experienced rapid growth between 2010 and 2015 and employed almost 50 employees by 2016. Unfortunately, it sounds like the rapid growth came with its challenges, especially with recruitment and this put undue pressure on employees at the time. It must have been a challenging time for all, including the owners, who admittedly had little experience in managing such a large team. I do remember when I joined the business in 2016, I was surprised to see how young the workforce was, and it was predominantly graduates (ironically called Executives). This wasn’t necessarily a problem but combined with department managers and operations managers who were only a few years older with no experience in leading and developing teams, it was a recipe for disaster. It must have been a challenging environment to be in and an unsustainable way to run a business! Fortunately, the owners realised this and decided to make changes. Sounds like the changes came too late for you. I remember my first two years at SQ were probably the most challenging in my 20+ year career. Right from the beginning, it was apparent there was going to be a need for drastic change if the business was going to be successful. There was considerable turmoil as we addressed the culture and laid the foundations for growth. We experienced resistance to change, high staff turnover, and disruption to customer service as we tried to implement a new management structure, invested in systems, and streamlined processes. Even during this period, we made a lot of mistakes, but we kept learning and adapting. In all honesty, we’re still making mistakes now, but fortunately, we tend to get more things right than we do wrong these days, but I guess no business is perfect. I think it was in 2018 when we concluded the initial phase, and with the help of external consultants, we developed a brand strategy and a 5-year plan to kick-start a renewed growth plan. Yes, we did rebrand to SQ Digital, as it indicated that we didn’t just do search anymore. We didn’t plan on renaming the business until a former employee suggested it to us. The owners weren’t keen on the rebrand, but after some convincing, we compromised on SQ Digital. The owners didn’t want to lose the connection to its past – the S and Q are from SearchQuest. If I had got my way, I would have chosen a completely unrelated name. Either way, it was hardly an attempt to disassociate ourselves from SearchQuest. In fact, the SearchQuest page on Glassdoor links to the SQ Digital page. We’re proud of our humble beginnings, and yes, it hasn’t been smooth sailing but your review, albeit somewhat embellished, highlights how far the business has come. We have a huge amount of talent for a relatively small business, and we recognise the value that every one of our team delivers. We’ve managed to reduce the headcount to around 30 and invest the money back into the business, including paying above average market salaries. We also continuously invest in our people, ensuring that we nurture the exceptional talent we have. We’re big on training and development and have produced many experts in the industry over the years. Our employees all have annual objectives, monthly check-in meetings and dedicated hours each month for training and development. We encourage our employees to focus on behaviours and technical skills for their personal development. To support this, as well as running internal workshops, we also have leadership development workshops delivered by an external training company. These workshops include commercial and strategy, leadership, confidence building, change management, and others. We promote staff wellbeing, and through CiC, we offer all our employees independent, free and confidential information, advice and support service, including counselling services. In addition to nurturing our existing team, we also offer a graduate scheme. The individual is given the opportunity to spend the first six months with each of our teams before deciding which digital marketing discipline to focus on. We're also active in providing opportunities to pupils and undergrads and provide work experience for local schools and universities. We have an IT plan to ensure our teams have the best tools available to complete their work. We have developed software to help us deliver new efficiencies and reduce the pressure on our employees. We constantly review how we do things to drive efficiency and reduce tasks that add no value. Since Covid, we’ve successfully adapted our working practices to hybrid working. The changes have resulted in a happier and more productive team with more freedom to manage their workloads alongside spending quality time with colleagues and building a healthy work-life balance. But don’t take my word for it. I would encourage you to pay us a visit and see for yourself. If you’re willing, I can arrange a meeting with the owners and hopefully, you can finally get some closure. Feel free to contact me at kamal@sqdigital.co.uk. Kamal Essa (Managing Director)