Always Addressing the Symptoms, Never the Disease - Anonymous employee Phacil, Inc. Employee Review

>To see the Cons of Phacil, you just have to read through these Glassdoor reviews. Vague positive reviews are highly dismissive of any so-so or negative reviews as "just disgruntled employees". Yes, sometimes people get upset and just find an outlet to vent. But when there is a pattern of multiple "disgruntled employees", why does no one bother to ask why these people are growing jaded with Phacil? This habit of dismissing employee concerns until they build up enough to boil over is the perfect metaphor to how Phacil is managed. >Executive management is simply out of touch. They talk about "culture" like it is a tangible item that can simply be crammed into a company, but then repeatedly make morale-destroying decisions behind closed doors while claiming to be open and communicative. They penalize employees who try to go the extra mile and make Phacil a company that is different from the heard, but then say that despite all the changes, the culture won't change. >Repeated waves of massive turnover are always followed by waves of sudden caring and attention by upper management until everyone feels comforted again. Then the attention from upper management wanes and employees are asked to work crazy hours again, even on projects they are told to their face have no potential for success. All over again, employee concerns go unaddressed until the next batch of people leave and its time for upper management to pay attention again. >There is a growing pattern of scapegoating. Senior Managers are brought in that don't really fit the team, or even understand the work at times. When this contributes to or coincides with lots of people leaving, the Senior Manager is fired and all the problems are blamed on them. If this happened once or twice, sure, it's believable that you inevitably get some bad eggs in a company as large as Phacil. More than four times? Maybe it is time to take a closer look at Executive Management and how they are selecting and preparing Senior Managers. >Instead of open and honest communication up and down the chain of command like a healthy company would have, Executive Management tells the owners what they want to hear, and the employees what they want to hear, then continues onward as they planned to all along. As expected, this leads to conflict when promises and expectations are not met, and every time this happens, Executive Management is somehow surprised. >Phacil is always chasing the next new and shiny idea. Processes and business strategy changes at least once, if not twice a year. Implementation of new processes and procedures run their course, but usually before they are completed or allowed to result in any substantial change, the next NEW IDEA! is announced. And the cycle begins again. >Phacil rewards and encourages employees who work themselves to death. Unfortunately, for as great as the Business Development education program is, there is a dark side to it. Many people, especially young millennials with substantial educations and tons of debt, are still struggling to get jobs and are more than willing to put in 60-80 hours a week all year long once they have a job. It's heartbreaking to see people in the office before the sun is up AND after the sun sets. And if voices are raised daring to ask for a little better work/life balance, they are either told "things will get better" (spoiler alert: they don't), or they are told to "put up with it or quit". There are a lot of reviews here saying the hours are long, "but that is what we are paid for". Sure, sometimes you need to put in the late nights and weekend to make sure the services you are providing to the government are the best they can possibly be. But when every salaried employee on the Business Development side is constantly working 15%-50% above a standard year of 2080 hours, and a few people are approaching double a standard year of work, maybe its time for Management to step in and make sure there isn't more that could be done to keep people from burning out. >In addition to all the above issues, corporate processes are just becoming top heavy and burdensome. Phacil is very much on the small-side of large businesses. We used to pitch that our flat management structure made us quick and nimble in making decisions and acting on issues. But, when an employee complains about any of the above issues, you'd think Phacil was a billion dollar behemoth for as long as it takes to even address the complaint, let alone do anything about the problem (if anything is done). >For as flippant Phacil is about overlooking negative feedback, they are image conscious, which you need to be in this industry. The recent bout of negative reviews is sure to have stirred up concerns with management. I'm sure in a few short hours after I post this review, the damage control teams will be scrambled to make short term fixes at Phacil. And that is the frustrating part. Phacil is not that far from the right path. The work is fun and interesting. They are good about building up teams, even if they can't sustain a functional one for any length of time. They have all the employee feedback and other data they need to fix the problem. But they always take the easy path, make the quick fix, and then can't understand when people get frustrated AGAIN by all the familiar core issues that were never addressed in the first place.