7y
Thank you very much for posting here at Glassdoor your experience at Smart Systems Technology. At Smart Systems Technology we say almost daily “communication is how we win,” and great communication starts with listening. We strive every day to listen to feedback from all of our Spheries via newsfeeds, polls, huddles and direct one-on-one interactions. You are correct that we are a small business and change is hard for any organization and requires resources. We are not always able to address everything all at once, so we set goals and priorities, striving for progress, not perfection, because if change is hard, transformation is perhaps even harder and more ambitious. Ultimately this is what our vision is looking to realize – a totally better way of working. The CEO (the Nucleolus) is passionate about “doing big things” but we do believe we have the right team working under the normal limits and conditions of small business and the marketplace to put the right processes in place to do the right things the right way at the right time more often.
You make some good observations in the ‘Cons’ section of your post. We hear you. We don’t want to abandon our develop-from-within philosophy, but we are working on moving people into new stations more slowly than before. When we were growing at 250%, we moved people who were performing best into new roles, leaving their previous positions open for new hires. On the one hand, we saw this as creating new jobs, which we believed was a good thing. What we did not anticipate was that this “advancement” took someone out of a role in which they were performing well and put them into a new position that they needed time to learn while replacing them with a new Specialist in their previous position who also needed time to learn. What this meant effectively was that we went from one person at one station who was performing well to two people at two stations who were learning their stations. We didn’t account for the anxiety that comes with learning a new role. We are sorry if this affected you. We now have a new design to allow people more time to advance and develop into a new station. However, we are also very proud of the 10 successful jumps that have been made. These have been dream jobs that improved these individuals’ career paths, earning power and quality of work-life balance. So, we believe the above changes and others made in the last year are for the better. Your feedback is valued, but we want to keep in balance with the positive feedback we have also received regarding changes in the last year as we’ve continued to grow, learn and develop as an organization.
We are trying to be something unique. There is perhaps nothing more challenging in life than taking a dream and moving it into a fully-operating reality. Doing this as an individual is difficult. Doing it as a team with many viewpoints even more so. We are not the first leadership team to feel spread thin in the course of growing a company. We readily admit we don’t have all the skill to fill all gaps – that’s why we’re investing so much energy into building it. We will do as you say and keep working at it. We also hope we get to where we want to be. We only recently became aware that we were receiving feedback here on Glassdoor and have now caught up on the previous posts you referenced and look forward to replying in a timelier fashion moving forward. Your post is receiving a reply in just a few days. However, not being aware of important new services such as Glassdoor does not mean we are being disingenuous or unaware of the importance of a balanced perspective around one’s business reputation – no more than the anonymous nature of your feedback should reflect negatively on you. There is nothing wrong with it - it’s a good thing.
In conclusion, to your last point, since taking over the company we have never had the ability to offer healthcare. We can’t comment on hearsay without specifics on healthcare promises, but we can say with certainty that our recruiting Sphere is directed to absolutely not make promises or guarantees that we aren’t able to fulfill on day one of employment. When we began the re-imagining of SST 5 years ago there were two BIG Goals.
1. Paying everyone a Living Wage and offering career growth from there
2. Offering Health Benefits
It is part of our dream to be great for our people to offer them and their families healthcare benefits. Yet, only the most competitive businesses are able to afford it. We want to be such a business. When we have healthcare, it will mean we are creating value and performing at a high level for our clients, people and partners. Hopefully, this post, if read by anyone considering applying to Smart Systems Technology, will help be clear on this fact – we don’t currently offer healthcare benefits.
