Once Magical, Now Overworked: A Company Losing Its Spark - Marketing Specialist Wolfenden Employee Review

Thank you so much for such a detailed review, you’ve offered plenty of feedback which has been really helpful for us to evaluate as a board. Now we’ve had a chance to discuss your feedback I want to come back on your points hopefully to add some further context as to what you might be experiencing, and to let you know how we’re evolving our approach to make sure as many of the team have a positive experience as possible. Social events are organised in-line with employee feedback and planned through the shadow board. As you know, the suggestions for what the shadow board plan come straight from the team to ensure we have a range of activities to appeal to a variety of lifestyles and hobbies etc. Over the past few years, feedback and social event attendance has led to a decision sometimes to organise fewer but bigger events which has been welcomed by the majority of staff in the feedback we’ve received, but I’m sorry that’s not the case for you. It’s always going to be tricky for us to please everyone with these but what I can tell you is that we are working on a refreshed calendar of internal events that will bring lots of variety throughout each month moving forward. I’m really sorry that you’re feeling overworked, we absolutely don’t want anyone in the team to feel this on a consistent basis and I’d strongly recommend speaking to your manager if you haven’t already. I appreciate this might not be visible to you, but as a board we do review capacity levels on a weekly basis for this very reason. The recent testing of timesheets (due to end soon) has given us an even greater level of transparency on capacity across teams and we’re actively recruiting in-line with what this tells us. This is not to invalidate how you’re feeling, but hopefully to give some reassurance that this is something that is very much forefront of our priorities. With that being said, it's so important that you bring this up with your manager (or anyone on the board) as we would really like to fix this for you, certainly if you feel nothing has changed for a substantial period of time, as this is not how we want any member of the team to feel. As you’ve mentioned, we do have lots of processes across the agency, as any business does, which help facilitate our high-quality output and intended way of working for the benefit of the team. It’s an important point you raise about some perhaps not being followed as they should. We are an ever-evolving agency and we’re always open to iterating our approach for the better, it might be the case that some processes are replaced or have evolved into something else, and this might not have been communicated to you as effectively as it could have been. We have taken away an action to work closely with the leadership team to review all processes and ensure they are consistently followed by the team, so thank you for your feedback here. You raise a good point about the strategic board setting the shadow board agenda. This has been our approach so far as there have been specific areas we value the shadow board’s input in to help us towards our vision. We do always open the floor for suggestions from the shadow board on what we could focus on in the next session, but moving forward this could absolutely be more set in stone in our approach and we will more actively seek the shadow board’s support in shaping their focus. When looking at staff retention, it has been positive this year as you’ve seen – you mention this isn’t an accurate representation but it is a true representation of where we are today, and what we intend to maintain moving forwards. People leave, that’s just the way it is – and if you’ve worked in previous agencies, you’ll know that the churn rate in digital marketing can be higher than other industries. Sometimes there are things we can do to stop this, sometimes there aren’t. We can’t be everything to all people, that’s not to dismiss your concerns, but that is to say that where there are common concerns we have and always will address these, but there are some things that we are just unable to control. Every member of staff has an annual pay review, please do raise this with your manager or the board if this hasn’t happened for you. The conversation around promotions and pay can happen at any point throughout the year, as these are directly linked to an individual’s progression and we don’t want to stifle this in any way. Promotions may be pushed back if an individual isn’t hitting or exceeding set objectives, this is quite a standard approach to promotions and hopefully this is clearly communicated to you and you have a strong path towards where you want to be with plenty of support. Again, please do raise this with your manager or the board if this isn’t the case. Overall, it’s really sad to hear you feel the agency has lost its ‘spark’, and I truly hope this isn’t how more members of the team feel. We are more excited than ever about where we are and the plans we have moving forward. We are introducing some clarity around our vision which you and every member of our team is an integral part of, and I hope this will help to inspire and motivate you towards our collective goals, as every member of the team stands to benefit greatly from our journey. As a current member of staff, please do use our internal feedback touchpoints as much as possible so we can fix any specific issues you’re having, as we want to make your experience here is as positive and fulfilling as it can be. Thank you again for such detailed feedback here, it gives us a chance as a board to hold a mirror up to ourselves and our approach to see if we can continue to improve things for the better, and I hope we’ve given you some clarity and context on your points. Felicity