1y
Hi there!
Firstly, we would like to thank you for leaving your feedback. If you have any further feedback that you would like to share contact us at feedback@desana.io, we would like to make ourselves available to listen.
We are deeply sorry to hear that you feel disappointed, particularly in relation to the handling of redundancies and the overall culture. This feedback is something we want to reflect on and learn from.
Regarding redundancies, we fully acknowledge that this was a challenging time for everyone involved. We did not expect to have to make redundancies and it all happened very quickly; this was the result of forces beyond our control and the Founding team worked proactively to avoid this outcome. It was a decision that weighed heavily on us, and while we worked to handle it thoughtfully, it’s extremely unfortunate that you feel it was not well considered and that there was a lack of support given. We truly care about the people who have joined us on our mission but, regrettably, it doesn’t always work out. Again, this is never easy for anyone involved.
The impact on the team is something we are deeply conscious of, and the process was never intended to feel careless, and the decisions made were certainly not done on a whim. During the redundancy consultation period, our mental health partner, Spill, was available to all team members. We also supplied professional and personal resources, ongoing career support and enhanced payments to those who were affected by redundancy, in order to support them to secure a new role as soon as possible. We continue to make ourselves available to anyone in need of support and will continue to do so for as long as it takes for everyone to find new roles.
On the matter of favouritism and the culture you’ve highlighted, it’s disheartening to hear that you felt the company culture was not inclusive. We actively encourage a supportive and collaborative work environment for all team members and have always worked to make sure that the culture we promote is real and tangible for everyone in the team - our People Team work hard for that to be the case. As a result, culture always scores consistently high in our company-wide anonymous surveys. If there have been instances where certain individuals have felt excluded or undervalued, that is something we would like to improve on and we take your feedback seriously.
As for your comments regarding employee reviews, we take those seriously as well. While we encourage feedback in all forms, including public reviews, we would never intend for these to feel forced or coerced. We share our Glassdoor link with every team member should they wish to leave a review of their experience at Desana and it’s completely optional. As you are aware, reviews are anonymous and we don’t monitor who has or hasn’t left a review.
Employee feedback is central to helping us grow as a company, and we’ve always believed that open and honest opinions—both positive and negative—are vital to our success, it's why we regularly circulate pulse surveys and actively support every member of the team to complete them; the more data we have the more we can identify areas to improve on, and our People Team work hard to do so.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts, and if you would like to raise any further concerns, or would like to offer suggestions for improvement, our door is very much open. It's really important that we can learn so that we can always be growing, understanding and improving.
