Toxic workplace - Anonymous employee SmartCow Employee Review

1. Unhealthy workplace CEO playing favourites is one of the biggest issue in this company, it leads to workplace politics, gossips, dramas and unnecessary jealousy every other day. Certain employees are treated differently based on the list of assumed favoured and unfavored people, making it hard for others to work professionally. Some are leveraging these power they hold and work starting to get personal. Just to list out a few examples of these unprofessional behaviours: - Some stakeholders were excluded or isolated in meetings and discussions when news is that this person has been moved to the CEO’s “cold storage” list - Work getting undermined, areas of responsibilities and communications were removed without cause, a waste of effort for the victim to try to understand the underlying problems because there is no such thing as constructive feedbacks in the company, while backstabs and sabotages are common practices - Disrespectful language and reaction are used in responses or one's opinions getting belittled, in contrast to other co-workers especially those in favour by the boss - Some are influencing other coworkers into similar behaviour As a result, people are encouraged to constantly judge the others from what they hear through the grapevine. To be fair, most of the people are pretty enthusiastic and worked hard for the betterment of the company in the beginning but after several rounds of rejections and unfair treatment, some are too drained and exhausted to commit. 2. Company direction is a lost cause Company’s direction is obscure, some goals were set but mostly too ambitious and not sustainable as there are more ad hoc decisions than strategic planning. This is not too much of a problem given that it is common in startups, as long as there is job security for employees. All product development are given unrealistic timelines and some employees are overworked due to this, while some are underworked because of the uneven team distribution or were instructed not to be involved, yet those who have work tirelessly might not be getting the recognition they deserve. No software development lifecycle in place, causing increased development time and cost, though some of the managers are trying to implement some processes but it is hard to sustain when it is not an organisational effort. 3. Non-existent company structure Information about the company profit and revenue is not entirely transparent. Financial updates was not part of the agenda during company-wide town hall hence unsure about company growth. Management is a chaos as most decisions are made rashly and not based on any planning or metrics. For example, hiring and firing are not discussed or planned and often time it is solely depending on the opinions of certain personnels. There are no KPIs for employees so for some of the victims who were asked to leave, reason of terminations are unjustifiable. Team members have to adapt to a new reporting lines without any notice in advance. There is no organisation structure and scope of work and chain of commands is unclear for most people in the company. 4. HR Manager HR manager has low empathy, more provoking than nurturing when it comes to employee retention strategies. Some current / former employees were badly affected by her actions.