Benchworks Reviews

3.0

47% would recommend to a friend

(31 total reviews)
avatar

Thad Bench

64% approve of CEO

50% positive business outlook

Benchworks has an employee rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars, based on 31 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Benchworks employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

31 reviews
1.0
7 Mar 2019

Things Are Not What They Seem

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Not as many late nights as a lot of agencies.

Cons

Doing great work is not a priority. The priority is getting something out the door and billed. So, more of a fast food joint then a fine dining establishment. The majority of the agency’s top leadership has never worked at another agency and are making it up as they go. You can’t always fake it until you make it. They showed little or no interest in listening to those who have worked in a wide variety of agencies and who were genuine in expressing to leadership there are smarter and better ways to do things. They have two different offices with two very different cultures because they are in two very different locations and environments, which is fine, but they really struggle to accept this and seem frustrated over it. On the topic of culture, “graciousness” is repeated so often its value is lost and just because you something all the time it means nothing if it isn’t practiced. As for salary, they are way below the Philly average. This makes keeping people quite an obstacle when you are in a city with a lot of Pharma agencies who pay much better and are also doing better work.

2.0
9 June 2021

Hit or miss

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Small enough to know everyone although that kind of wasn't a factor during COVID. Creative dept is surprisingly on their game considering what they have to deal with. Definitely not a bad place for someone new in their career to get their feet wet and something on their resume.

Cons

Leadership in name only. It's been said in other reviews and then you see the fake reviews that follow. They don't know the first thing about how to run an agency or truly lead people towards a vision. They just managed to get a few people who do and they work them to death and then puff out their chests and act like experts. It's toxic at the top (like they say about a fish rots from the head down?) and it's a shame because there's potential there and it's just withering away due to really poor leadership and direction.

1.0
20 Dec 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

When I first joined, the work life balance was fine. Pretty chill office environment in terms of people coming/going. Lots of lunch outings that later became necessity—the office is also in a good area overall in a pretty neat building. The Happy Hours were often good—granted they usually came out of necessity for the mental well being of employees, they were typically fun all the same and about the only time there felt to be any true sense of company culture. Benchworks had the appearance of being a place on the verge of good things.

Cons

This facade quickly faded, at least among the employees who knew better due to having worked in real agency environments. Benchworks is a company operated essentially by a wealthy small town family from Maryland who aspires to break into the Philly Pharma advertising scene—with no real background in what they wanted to participate in. This was frustrating for the professionals who joined Benchworks in hopes of producing meaningful and creative work. Just a few of the many highlights from my time with their Philadelphia office: - We initially worked under a Creative Director who had the experience of a junior designer leading a team of 5 creatives with a collective 80+ years of experience (this is still relevant as it illustrates how nepotism drives the Benchworks employee roster)—to be fair this CD had been replaced by someone with far more 'resume experience' - Account executives who had no practical experience working with clients nor knowledge of what their job was supposed to entail - Aloof senior leadership team who often used Benchworks as a vehicle for their personal networking; the creative team was often being tasked with quickly churning out designs for the CEOs social network - A senior member of the leadership team was known to make inappropriate and highly offensive jokes that employees generally felt obligated to laugh off; in hindsight I was pretty ashamed of not saying anything in the moment - The work environment itself was white washed and toxic, severely lacking any sense of diversity, culture, or adherence to modern decency for an office of its size; there was a constant surplus of absurd drama going on at any given moment - The office issues culminated in half of the Philadelphia office leaving en masse over the course of a couple months

Viewing 1 - 3 of 31 Reviews

Glassdoor has 34 Benchworks reviews submitted anonymously by Benchworks employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Benchworks is right for you.