4 Apr 2023
99Ads Response
3yThank you for taking the time to share your feedback. Radical transparency is one of our core values, and we always appreciate positive and negative feedback. We are sorry to hear that you had a negative experience while working with us, and we would like to address some of the concerns you mentioned in your review:
- Demeaning form of feedback: We value feedback from our team members and apologize if any feedback you received was delivered in a demeaning way. We are committed to providing constructive feedback in a respectful manner. We provide all our team members with hours upon hours of training material, including extensive information on how to deliver (and receive) feedback the right way. We will be investigating to find any form of demeaning feedback. Again, thank you for pointing that out;
- No cultural organization: We take pride in fostering a positive and competitive workplace culture, and we understand that not everybody might be comfortable working with colleagues who produce and expect high-quality output and constant performance. With that being said, we are still a relatively-young Company and we have a long way to go in terms of building and fostering the right culture. It is a work in progress, and once again, we appreciate you pointing out some weak links of our chain;
- Salary: We understand how important compensation is to our employees, and we strive to ensure that our compensation packages are competitive and fair. We apologize if you felt that you were not adequately compensated for your work. However, during the training period the output is much lower than it is supposed to be once you get to the full-time position, and that’s when the salary goes up. Important: getting to the full-time position is nothing to be taken for granted, but it’s based on performance (more on this later);
- Awful leaders: We take all feedback regarding our leadership team seriously, and we are sorry to read that you did not have a positive experience with them. We are committed to providing our leaders with the training and support they need to be effective in their roles - and again, we will be investigating to see more specifically what can be improved;
- No growth motivation: We value personal and career growth of all the people who join our Company. We provide the best resources available for pretty much all of the roles, as well as we are also constantly investing to hire external consultants to help our team members get to the next level. On top of that, we also have a full bonus structure in place based on performance and 360 feedback once per trimester. Once again, we take your feedback seriously and think of how we can make things even better.
On a final note, on the review you mention that we hire two people a month for the role and that the person who stayed the longest in the Company has been with us for one year. Both sentences are factually incorrect and would probably fall into business defamation. Just to set the record straight:
1. There’s no system in place that tells us to hire X amount of people per month for any role, and at the current pace - we will be hiring more and more. Please, note: hiring and training a person is a massive investment for any Company in monetary terms, but also in terms of other resources such as managers time, opportunity cost, and much more.
We can guarantee that we would never let anybody go unless their performance was incredibly-low compared to other team members with the same experience and training;
2. Some of the people in the Company have been with us for more than 5 years now - actually before 99ads was born, as they joined Labis Labs first (our previous project) and then decided to follow us with 99ads. We can’t fathom how you came up with that sentence, but happy to hear you on that.
All in all, we thank you for the feedback and wish you all the best for the future. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss your concerns further and explore any ways in which we can improve.
Best Regards,
Alessio Cordeddu