The best way to describe life at AXON is to break it apart or down by roles or departments:
Account Associates
Very eager and young people are hired, and AXON takes advantage of this eagerness. They drink the cool-aide early on, only because they have zero to no experience in the working world, and are eager to perform well.
Account Managers
Quickly promoted from being Account Associates, and equally work very long hours, and are not properly compensated. The only difference between their new role and old one is that the level of responsibility is elevated, but they are still very green, and easily swayed.
Account Directors
Look and seem very stressed. Unable to offer true support because they might be stretched thin. Their roles have shifted a bit and they don't seem to know their place or have found their footing within the new context of work or expectation. They don't seem to work long hours, either, but are still stressed.
Directors
Micromanagers who have certain, individualistic ways of doing things and is causing frustration and confusion as each director has a different style of working on accounts, when there should not be a difference. Directors have been with AXON for many years, and this shows in how stagnated we are as an agency.
Senior Leadership
Small team, but their influence is huge. Not in a good way. They are too hands-on and exhibit poor behaviour and judgement all the time. The Managing Partner is extremely unprofessional and it puts people off, including clients. He has made comments in meetings that are meant to be funny, but do not hit the mark and are borderline inappropriate. From him there is too much emphasis on money. The vice-president is also extremely unprofessional and has been called out to HR many times for instances of bullying or inappropriate comments/behaviour. Those in senior leadership have been running AXON for decades, and their lack of experience working with other companies or teams is showing, and it is creating an environment that is unwelcoming and closed to new ideas or ways of doing things.
Human Resources
As previous posts have mentioned they are aware of the issues at AXON but for some reason do not do anything about it. They listen, but there is never any action afterwards. This has been going on for MANY years.
Travel
This was used as leverage or bait, especially among account directors. It was always deemed an honour to travel with someone from senior leadership. There was never any real reason for it, but just lumped into the work, and only a few chosen were able to take advantage. Needless to say the pandemic put a damper on that, and maybe this is why everything has gone downhill. With no one traveling they are now having to focus on work and dealing with the team(s) on a daily basis. This has not gone well.
Office Culture
They want people to go into the office but do not provide proper protocols or rationale as to why anyone should return to office. There is no incentive to go into the office, and if life is this bad with everyone having worked remotely, it can only be even worse if we are all forced to go into the same shared space.
Salaries and bonuses
There is huge secrecy around what people are paid at this company, and bonuses are at the discretion of leadership. Through common "office talk" it has been revealed that there are huge gaps in salaries. It has been revealed that some new employees are able to negotiate higher salaries, and those who have been with the company longer and even if they're promoted remain stagnant in their salaries. There is no formal structure to pay increases and this too seems to be in the hands and at the whim of senior leadership.
Toronto vs. UK/U.S.
Everything mentioned above seems to be an issue mainly for us in Toronto and in Clinical Trial Services. Others at AXON in other countries or not a part of CTS don't seem to be encountering the same level of stressors.
Overall Conditions
Life at AXON seems to be very different from other agencies within the AVENIR Global company. In larger meetings with the whole company those from other agencies seem to be far happier, or at least not as unhappy as some of us at AXON CTS. AXON leadership doesn't attend larger meeting within AVENIR , or mention AVENIR much and therefore seem to operate as if they're independent from it.
