Pros
1. **Remote Work Flexibility:** One of the biggest advantages of working at Clubessential is the ability to work remotely. This flexibility helps with work-life balance and can be a significant benefit for those who prefer the comfort and convenience of working from home. 2. **Great Coworkers/Employees** Another positive aspect is the team. Many of the coworkers are friendly, supportive, and collaborative. They help create a collegial environment that's pleasant to work in on a day-to-day basis. 3. **Growing Company**
Cons
TL/DR: While Clubessential offers some appealing perks like remote work and a generally nice team dynamic, it is plagued by serious cultural and structural issues. The toxic work environment, characterized by misogyny, racism, lack of support, horrible pay, intimidation, and overwork, significantly outweighs the pros. Significant improvements are needed, particularly in terms of management accountability and addressing discrimination, to make it a truly positive place to work. Detailed Response 1. **Misogynistic Culture:** Unfortunately, Clubessential has a notable issue with misogyny. Women often face discrimination, are called emotional for expressing discontentment with treatment and inequality, and it's not uncommon to encounter abusive behaviors of male counterparts that go unchecked. This can create a challenging and uncomfortable workplace for female employees. This issue is worsened when you consider higher female managers and directors support this hostile environment by not addressing these issue, even when they are witnesses to the behavior. Often times, they do not act until someone ask them to do something, and even then, the request must be made repeatedly. I have witnessed multiple women on the team express unfair treatment by male coworkers and even saw one get asked a sexually inappropriate question in a meeting. Nothing was done about this even though several employees expressed how uncomfortable the behavior was. 2. **Cheap Management:** The company tends to cut corners financially, often at the expense of lower level employee welfare. They also seem to enjoy rubbing it in everyone's face by addressing record high sales/revenue in company wide meetings while avoiding questions about merit increases and current pay. This frugality can lead to inadequate resources and a general lack of investment in the workforce. 3. **Overworked Staff:** Employees frequently find themselves overworked, with high expectations and heavy workloads that are not manageable. This is the expectation if you want to get ahead. This can lead to burnout and a negative impact on both personal health and job performance. This behavior is enforced by assessments and how promotions are handled with the majority of employees. 4. **Lack of Accountability in Management:** Leadership often fails to take responsibility for their actions or lack thereof. Decisions are made without proper research or oversight, and accountability is sorely lacking, leading to poor leadership and organizational inefficiencies. When concerns are addressed with leadership, often no answer is given, and a follow-up is promised. That follow-up rarely happens, and in the few times it does, a corporate answer is provided, which means a lot of words are said, but no true answer is given. We at Clubessential call this the CE answer. 5. **Poor HR Support:** When complaints are lodged, particularly serious ones like discrimination or harassment, the HR department tends to fall short. Many employees feel that their concerns are not taken seriously or addressed effectively, creating an environment where issues persist unchallenged. Examples include female employees going to HR about abusive behaviors from male counterparts and being told they are just taking the behavior too seriously. There are also no documented or well-known processes in place to file a complaint with HR, which appears intentional. 6. **Issues with Discrimination:** There are troubling accounts of inequality with people of color facing discriminatory attitudes and treatment. Communicating with a few of the small pool of minorities we have in the company has indicated this treatment is seen in all departments. This includes pushing the prejudiced narrative of minorities being aggressive when challenging ideas they don't agree with, but calling it passion when the same behavior is used to verbalize agreeance or support. (This also happens with female employees where they are called emotional when addressing concerns or verbalizing disagreeance). This also stems from how Clubessential senior leadership makes statements such as asking an African American employee if her hair was real. This lack of inclusivity and respect undermines the company's supposed values and significantly affects the morale and well-being of affected employees. 7. **Lack of Training:** Newly hired employees receive inadequate training. The company expects new hires to learn on the job, leading to mistakes and inefficiencies that could easily be avoided with proper guidance. Though request for additional educational material are made from staff and lower leadership, expectations are for these individuals to create the material, rather than the education team. 8. **Intimidation:** There is a culture of intimidation where employees are forced to sit in meetings with multiple leaders, to discuss monthly performance evaluation, rather than having the discussion with my own boss in a private setting. This is new thing since new managers were introduced, forcing a change in dynamics that did not need altering. 9.**Benefits** Not much to say here other than the health insurance is horrible. Instead of negotiating for better employee health insurance benefits, the company gives us a couple "wellness" days off when we reach the health related goal applied to the company, but does exclude the support team.