Genuine Reviews

In my time at Genuine, I saw an agency full of good people and a good intentions nearly destroyed by an identity crisis fueled by a lack of strong leadership and vision to get things to the next level. For years, Genuine's core competencies and operations were built around a waterfall approach to web design and development — it was something they were good at and known for. But to hit that next level they felt the need to diversify their offering — trying to model themselves after a full-service digital agency like HUGE. This is where things started to go wrong. While this wasn't an inherently bad strategy, there's a reason successful full-service, mid-size agencies are few and far between. Genuine simply didn't have the planning, organization, process, experienced talent, sales mindset, or level of accountability in-place to drive this strategy forward. The company won some decent accounts and employee count ballooned, but a strong foundation wasn't there to support the growth. This eventually led to mismanaged and lost accounts, overtaxed employees, a 'figure it out as you go' mindset, and general disillusionment with the agency's direction. The sale to Jack Morton and IPG accelerated and amplified these core problems, as hitting revenue goals imposed by IPG quickly seemed to be the only thing that mattered. It's possible things have improved since I departed, as I've heard there is new leadership in-place. But overall, I was disappointed in my time there as I really did think we were on the precipice of doing something great.

Underpinning Genuine's culture is an absolute need to deliver on time for clients. Project Managers and Account people juggle lots of projects at once and coordinate with leadership and clients, leaving little time to collaborate on the project itself, and leaving designers and programmers largely autonomous on projects that they need to push through. If wires get crossed, PMs and Account people expect overtime to complete, particularly from programmers who come at the end of the process. Since PMs and Account largely communicate on budget, and rate "Resources" the internal word for designers and programmers at the end of each project, they have significant power in the organization. The company asks all employees to report complaints about others to upper management and does not encourage candid cooperation with resources. The company has something of a Nice policy. If you aren't seen to be nice, your career will likely suffer there. Compensation is lower than industry average, and since you are working largely individually, more is expected than in a company with more time for collaboration. Accounts definitely has a strong push to sell, and grow the company, so Genuine takes on a variety of projects, some large, some very small, many are not glamorous. Employees are occasionally expected to do data entry in their downtime. New employees are welcomed, but also seen as expendable until they prove themselves. Two founders run the company "out of their heads" which leads to significant degradation in the confidence of lower managers to communicate directly with their charges; conflicts and personnel issues run through the founders office, necessitating fast decisions. Overall it's a young highly charged environment, which rewards high performers with the comfort of knowing they won't be made to be egalitarian.