Bleak outlook for what could be a great place to work. - Anonymous employee Avoq Employee Review

1.0
19 July 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

· The SM team is largely made up of absolutely wonderful people. My favorite thing about the company was the group of folks I got to work with day-in and day-out. · Some of the clients are pretty cool and there is the possibility to work on cool projects. · The office location couldn’t be better (right by McPherson Square, Metro Center and City Center). The space itself is pretty cool and there are standing desks(!) throughout the office, snacks, a nice coffee machine and a gym in the building. · If you’re a younger employee just getting started in your career, this is a great place to spend a few years to build your resume. You’ll get a chance to work on a variety of projects and cultivate a pretty strong personal toolbox of skills.

Cons

· Poor staffing decisions have resulted in high turnover across multiple departments. (For example, the client services team alone has seen almost 20 people go in and out of the fold in the past 3 years). This high rate of company-wide change hurts team morale and makes it difficult to have one point person from each team be responsible for a project from start to finish. · Clients often treat day-to-day agency contacts as their own personal punching bags, sometimes to the point of actual emotional abuse. There is little support or protection from senior leadership when this happens; from a lower-level perspective, legitimate staff complaints are more oftentimes than not just laughed off. · Absent or under-qualified supervisors result in junior employees having far more responsibility than is reasonable for any one person. In some instances, this could serve as a growth opportunity for those direct reports, but in most cases, the unbalanced distribution of work goes seemingly unnoticed by senior management. If all goes smoothly with a project, the account leads are often given the majority of the agency-wide credit. This kills team morale and only encourages the problem to grow. · Culture is at the bottom of the priority list. There are no longer company-wide or team building events. When the company switched offices in 2017, it seemed like the emphasis on culture was on the incline, but after 4 months, culture improvement and planning meetings ceased completely. There is the occasional lunch and learn, but topics aren't as relevant to employees as they could be. · Little-to-no work-life balance. Understaffing means team members can rarely take actual PTO. The average work week for many consists of 55+ hours. When employees do fully go offline when they're OOO (as they should), they're often looked down upon. · Favoritism among senior leadership is a serious problem. It is visible to the majority of junior staffers and very demotivating. · Over-committing, under-delivering on some things and over-serving clients on others are the norm. Senior leadership or managers will reach out to clients directly or develop contracts without checking in with internal teams first. This will result in commitments that can be under-budgeted or out of scope, off strategy or completely unreasonable in the agreed upon time frame. If employees express concerns over timing, resources, etc. they can be ignored or reprimanded and told to simply "figure it out." The mixed messages result in hectic/disorganized production, confused and frustrated clients and (sometimes) sub-par final products.

Explore other reviews about Avoq

5.0
3 Mar 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people are the best part of working there! Hybrid schedule, nice office and benefits.

Cons

Avōq is the result of a merger that occurred not too long ago, they’re still working out some kinks.

1
1.0
23 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There’s nothing good about working here.

Cons

Absolutely toxic, cliquey culture; management plays favorites with everything, not really any room to grow and will actually hurt your career because this place has a bad reputation; pay is slightly lower than other firms.

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