BroadbandTV is one of the most dysfunctional work environments that I’ve been a part of. There are quite a few issues with the company.
You may want to work for a few months, earn commission, but make sure to plan your exit after 6 months or so. There is a short-term gains focus at BroadbandTV and it is not a focus for the company to develop your skills. You may learn basic communication skills, but you won’t have access to transferable skills like industry tools (i.e. CRM tools, Salesforce, etc) or proper sales processes. There are also no skills development with quantifiable metrics, no growth opportunities that can match similar jobs in the industry, and no discernable plan for growth in either position or functional skills.
As an employee that recognizes that I’ve been on the positive end of favouritism, I still want to note that favouritism is a very real issue at BroadbandTV. Bias is a reality of most workplaces, but comparing BroadbandTV with other work environments, and being someone who is favoured, favouritism at BBTV is at a dysfunctional level. Authority is consolidated to a few individuals, and favouritism by a member of upper management has an immense impact on your development at the company.
The consolidation of authority at the top also means that the company is inflexible to change and does not empower any significant changes driven by other employees.
Personally, I don’t trust that the company has its employees or its customers’ best interest in mind. From what I’ve seen over the past few years, it’s always been short term gains at the expense of everything else. As one of many examples, the mass hiring of salespeople in an effort to bolster the KPIs of the department, due to unreasonable metrics set by the CEO, are not met with similar investments in supporting departments. The value to the customers is therefore diminished by this effort. Short term gains are preferred over an honest effort to build this company.
This short term focus and because of the management in place, leads to ethically ambiguous behaviours that permates to the sales team.
I don’t personally work with Sharzad, the CEO, I hope that her intentions are good (although I don’t know for sure). But her undue pressures to her management team encourages a negative team culture. Either she is willfully unaware, or else is intentionally turning a blind eye so that the company appears to be doing well. I hope that it’s the former. It also needs to be mentioned that while I don’t expect a personal conversation with the CEO of a company at this size. I personally have not heard anything from her that was not carefully scripted in my two years with the company. And the only objective observation I can make about the CEO is that certain change initiatives that she proclaimed have not been followed through. Change has been promised and “planned”, and the counter-point is that change takes time. Which is true. But I’ve seen this cycle several times of promised change with no actions taken over 2+ years. There are individuals trying to make things better, but ultimately, the issue is at the top, and barriers to change also occurs there.
Unfortunately, there are young people new to the job market that start at BroadbandTV and will think that this is what a normal business environment looks like, this is how they should act and behave, and that the dysfunction and favoritism at this level is normal. The company has a responsibility to properly develop these employees but is unable or unwilling to do so.
There will likely be future reviews written specifically to discredit this review. But my hope is that you as a job seeker have all the information about the company. Glassdoor reviews in general may have a tendency to lean into the “rant” realm, but these reviewers ultimately hope that you have all the information and manage your expectations accordingly. This is especially true of BroadbandTV.
