Employer of Last Resort - Communications Manager Alight Solutions Employee Review

Where to begin? It's hard to write this without it sounding like a rant. However, having worked for other real, professional services organizations I know how this business should work and can be objective. In full disclosure, I was let go so some of you will say, "Oh you're just jaded." Ok, go ahead, take the job but don't say I didn't warn you. Corporate Culture—Remote work situations and decentralized support staff. So you don’t get a chance to really get to know your colleagues on the other side of the phone. That might sound appealing but when you need to be working together to solve a problem or deliver for clients it can be a real problem. I’ve worked in organizations where it does work, but it didn’t here. Get ready for bad attitudes and/or people who start with “No” or a reason why something can’t be done. Things are very disjointed and then you have some services centralized in a way that makes no sense and actually detracts from delivering quality work. Solutions—This is supposed to be a professional services organization but very few of the people at the top really understand what that means. They’re playing professional services and they’re the freshman squad, at best. The solutions we sold to clients were flawed or already out of date with other things currently in the market place. If you looked at the technology solutions (ex: Upoint) it seemed as if it was developed in a vacuum by people who had no idea of the end users’ needs or understanding of other complementary technology out there. Management—Lots of seriously passive aggressive management styles with far too many in those higher positions forgetting how the work actually gets done. Also, too many leaders who are not skilled for the role. This is a common complaint in a lot of companies, but I met more “crazy” people in management positions in this organization than I expected. Why? Because they didn’t have the knowledge, skills or abilities to do their jobs, and they were making it all up as they went along. Worse still, they forgot what they learned while making it up so a few too many emotional wrecks. I had senior people crying on more than one occasion and once in front of a client. Training—Zero. Ok, ok, not zero. They have some manager training programs which are actually ok but the problem is that the things you learn in them are not repeatable or supported in the organization. If you are not in a manager role I am not sure you could expect to learn other than by doing. That’s a fine way to learn in life but clients suffer often when organizations rely on that as the only way to build skills. Things are dim and dimming at Alight. Consider them an employer of last resort.