Stress in the time of Corona - Anonymous employee Sennder Employee Review

Resources are constantly misspent and poorly allocated, with many projects started and thrown away 6 months later. Even for a mature startup, there is an extremely high employee turnover. I started with 20 other employees and after a year there were only 3 left. Salaries are not assigned by skills or experience but rather the whims of inexperienced middle managers and inattentive C level. They are significantly below the market rate, which explains why the company is filled with workers directly from university. One of the worst aspects at Sennder was the persistent and systemic lack of respect across the entire company. It was the most appalling workplace I have ever worked in. It is highly toxic, reminiscent of an exclusive frat-house or private school, where popularity hierarchies rule, and respect is only given if you’re high up enough on this warped pyramid. There are giant televisions on every wall space visualising dispatchers’ daily (yes, daily!), weekly and monthly transport dispatch goals and those of their peers. So they are forced to sit at their desks with this looming presence and the constant pressure of their peers and managers knowing at all times whether or not they are meeting their goals. “Dispatchers are not to go home until they have completed their daily allocation of transports,” said the Operations Head to me. These are appalling working conditions, reminiscent of the targets imposed upon those working in Amazon’s warehouses. This manipulative style of worker management is completely unethical. Workers are manipulated and encouraged to work unpaid overtime, and every day you will hear how stressed and burnt out everyone is. In my department, quarterly goals were assigned without the participation of the workers, without management understanding the scope of tasks and the amount of work that comes with them, and therefore were unachievable. If you are considering working here, I highly recommend you take into account my detailed experience at this company, because I regret staying there as long as I did. I am glad I made the decision to leave. If these points did not convince you, here is a bonus. At a time when it was patently clear the extent of the danger of the coronavirus, Sennder allowed an entire department to visit their Milan office. A week later, they invited a group of new-starters from Milan to the Berlin office for a week of onboarding. They endangered the lives of their employees, their families, and those in greater Berlin.