Knowland
I first wanted to say that I am extremely disappointed with my tenure at Knowland. I was beyond excited when I was first hired and extremely motivated. Management and their unobtainable goals completely quenched the drive I had.
The good reviews here are from one team: the tech team. I want to say that Steve, the CTO, is incredible and seems to really care and manage his team wonderfully. Keep it up, Steve. You’re too good to be there.
I will also say that I do think that instead of trying to understand why everyone is so upset and morale is so low, management will do exactly what they normally do with this post and others like it; they will be defensive and do nothing to change.
I will first start with expectations. Both the Sales team AND CS have completely ridiculous expectations and goals. CS teams have hundreds of accounts assigned to one person, while the sales team is the complete opposite. The sales team has an addressable market of a few hundred accounts, yet expected to close 25% of their market every single year to hit goal. Not to mention that the goals statistically do not make sense.
Management has no accountability . It is as simple as that. Certain new managers were hired and take lunches for hours on the last day of the month with new employees, and nobody bats an eye. Yet when a sales team member quits, and a longer than average lunch is taken to say goodbye since the company doesn’t care, the CEO has time to berate and scream at the entire sales team for MUCH too long, crushing morale even further.
They hire managers from the hospitality industry that are ignorant when it comes to sales. They don’t know the product. They don’t know sales. And they for SURE don’t know how to manage. You think I’m lying, have them demo the product. Have them answer with something substantial instead of ridiculous positive affirmations that don’t make sense. Being realistic is much more helpful for a failing team than stupid positive sayings that make no sense at all, especially when you tell the team you’re here to support them and then put half the team on a performance plan to fire them with goals that have NEVER been met.
There is tension between teams because of a few reasons. One, the processes as a company are horrible. The bureaucracy makes you feel like you’re at Cisco or working for the federal government. Nothing can get agreed upon or be done efficiently. Even basic sales contracts take days to approve and need CFO approval. Second, managers and VP’s literally talk poorly about other teams and employees during happy hour. You can see this tension even in the fake review that was posted before regarding Knowland being a great place to work. Employees are not lazy. They work non stop with absolutely no reward with ABSOLUTELY no training. So if a procedure is forgotten, I can assure you it is not because they are lazy. It is because management has done such a poor job at training.
90% of the day of manager’s are spent in meetings to figure out how to sell, yet when a sale is about to happen, they’re too busy in meetings to close the sale. I have never seen such a lack of motivation and urgency to close a sale. Not only that, but they don’t incentivize the team to close sales and make it so difficult to hit goal that you will NOT make money.
People are only acknowledged when they are doing well. You can hit goal one month, then be put on a performance plan the next.
HR - I have seen them mess up a colleagues 401k and they are defensive for everythingggg you bring to them. I know multiple people who have said they felt uncomfortable from a manager or needed help because a manager had it out for them and had proof…nothing. It is very clear that HR closes their eyes to employees and are just there to serve the poor management that is there.
Knowland is supposed to be a tech company. The lack of innovation when it comes to strategy is absurd. You want more sales, yet you don’t want to read more properties. The sales tactics are elementary and outdated. it is a shame that management is running around like a chicken with their head cut off trying to figure out what is working and what is not. YOU DON’T GIVE IT ENOUGH TIME. They have a training one month, then the next cancel it and change paths, then the next week do a marketing push that doesn’t work, then do another one the week after before we find out if the first worked. Mind: BLOWN. It is insanity.
Micromanagement does NOT work. They obsess over the smallest things that don’t make a difference, but ignore the numbers. You want to know how to fix the company, ASK THE EMPLOYEES. Also, the “open door policy” is inefficient when you tell the employees to ask questions in front of their managers that they have issues with. If you want other reasons why people don’t speak up, see above HR comment regarding defensiveness. It seems to be a trend here. Also, when things are asked in these public settings, mangers give the same answers you might find in a textbook political setting where they can’t seem to answer any questions in a straightforward manner, and completely omit difficult questions out.
Employees get fired and quit and management doesn’t even address it. The lack of professionalism in certain situations was extremely uncomfortable .
Also - favoritism. It was almost comical how they spread up territories to friends of managers, yet left the rest of us with territories that were extremely hard to sell to. Those same friends of managers are able to work from home permanently, when tenured employees cannot do the same.
They also have forgotten completely about the customer. Knowland is so stuck in their outdated processes and ways that they have completely forgotten what the customer actually wants and how they think. It’s pretty sad. They had a great product, but have no idea how to retain their customers and expand their offerings in a way that is competitive within the market. They can’t seem to be able to allocate resources to fix their poor model regarding the company, but poor money into new tools that are over priced and not in demand.
