Canstar Reviews

Pros

I work in IT at Canstar and am approaching my 3rd month. Can hands down say Canstar is a great place to work, from the beers at 4pm on a Friday to the great co workers, monthly massages and occasional morning brekfasts/lunches held. Aside from the great culture, the work amount is spot on - not too much to be stressed, but not too little to be looking to kill time. Also a pro that Canstar are willing to invest into you and your studies, and are happy to help you learn other skills at your time here.

Advice to Management

My direct manager is great, she mentors me and helps me learn the skills I need to do for certain tasks - even though sometimes im completely lost being new she is very helpful and patient. The executives are honestly great leaders in the business, especially coming from a company where if you'd pass an exec you'd try and turn the other way. Great that the execs are so friendly and approachable, will even get a beer in with you on a Friday afternoon

Pros

The workload is pretty manageable, never really had to work much past 5pm, and other departments seem similar. There are good groups of people and most people are friendly. Workspaces look nice and the company does admittedly do a good job of employing graduates and giving people a go. Many people have gone from casual employment to full time work in less than six months.

Cross-departmental cohesion is pretty good on large scale projects.

Advice to Management

Implement meaningful HR policies, work harder to retain staff - which leak at an incredible rate - beyond just ping pong tables, digital marketing conferences and lavish breakrooms. Fix the cultural rift between digital and the rest of the teams.

You can do this without losing 'company culture'.

Would give 2.5 stars but 3 stars seemed too generous.

Pros

Canstar has a positive and personal culture. Nearly all employees are friendly and encouraging. Canstar also has plenty of little perks that make work fun, such as birthday morning teas, celebratory lunches and cheap massages. Canstar also offers a great work-life balance and is usually pretty flexible with alternative working arrangements.

Advice to Management

Management should realise that while the little perks are nice, they are relatively superficial if employees don't feel respected in other regards, particularly remuneration and promotion opportunity.

Pros

Free breakfast, established company and strong branding in the industry will provide the opportunity to further your career, coworkers were pleasant and helpful

Advice to Management

Your employees are your best brand ambassadors. Bad word of mouth marketing spreads like wildfire.

Pros

Rapid growth means work is interesting and constantly changing. Many great people and a lot of responsibility given quickly to people in all roles

Advice to Management

Be honest and upfront about salaries in job ads and interviews to minimise frustration and distrust. Treat people with respect regardless of their gender and ego. Stop valuing the opinion of only those with overinflated egos (team commercial). Replace the sales team with people who care beyond themselves and their money. You have potential to become a great place to work if you recognise the greatness of your people doing great work but not blowimg their own horns.

Pros

Good culture and openly inclusive environment

Advice to Management

Automate all your processes - the data team are irrelevant

Pros

The people at Canstar are the best part of the workplace. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming. The culture has been a big focus over the last couple of years and there are so many great benefits for employees (free breakfast, fresh fruit, getting your birthday off). The social club is also actually really awesome, with things like a cinema movie night, trivia night and escape rooms. Canstar is very generous when it comes to events and celebrating successes.

The other thing I really like about Canstar is the accessibility of senior leaders. They are very approachable and easy to talk to. The CEO is super down to earth and loves to get to know employees. He knows what's happening in the business and can have a really operational conversation. I'm surprised by some of the older reviews here but I can only comment on my own experience.

Pros

Welcoming culture. Opportunities to take ownership of a team or project in a mid-sized company. Great people in each team make it easy to ask questions and learn.

Advice to Management

Hire more mid level managers so that group executives are not trying to be line manager for three departments.

Pros

Canstar have some great people and being small there is a lot you can contribute to add value. Your efforts will be appreciated but not necessarily rewarded. A positive attitude will get you far.

Advice to Management

Talk to people and find out what is important to each when deciding what incentives are appropriate. A table tennis table is quite reflective of the lack of awareness of what staff value and the obvious drive to employ cheap young and inexperienced labour who bring nothing more than a can do attitude with no training to help them fulfill this belief in themselves. You need to spend money appropriately to make money (and to retain your top performers who clean up the mess of others til they drop in exhaustion). You need to value staff members for them to value their job.

Pros

The drones who follow the company line are full of cringe but I like a lot of my co-workers who know what it's really like and speak freely about Canstar curse and we all have heaps of free time to look for better jobs and follow the race out of this unrewarding and boring place. Yes the air conditioning can be a bit cold but that should be the least of Cansta's concerns.

Advice to Management

Time for a change because you do not leave but all the rest of the workers come and go.