Strong Potential, Disappointing Reality - Art Instructor The Weekend Workshop Employee Review

Great and very friendly teammate

The management lacks fundamental kitchen hygiene standards and clear Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). Minor issues that could typically be resolved within 5–10 minutes are often met with unnecessarily aggressive reactions, creating a stressful working environment. The colleagues are friendly, supportive, and easy to work with. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the management, whose leadership and communication style could be significantly improved. The employment offer letter is poorly structured and lacks clarity on important terms and conditions. The pantry is also stocked primarily with unhealthy food options, with little consideration for employee well-being. Management frequently accepts last-minute customer orders or bookings without adequate operational planning, placing unnecessary pressure on employees. There appears to be a strong focus on maximizing profit, but insufficient attention is given to effective workforce management, employee welfare, and sustainable operations. There is also a perception that employees can be terminated at management's discretion without a transparent or consistent process, contributing to a sense of job insecurity.

- Great colleagues - Meal provided (though non regulated, can be too spicy or no flavour at all sometimes) - Easy transportation from LRT and street parking for driving

Horrible management!!! - Low pay for high expectations - No departmental systems at all, only 2 bosses, and untrained supervisors (though the supervisors seem to try their best, they are clearly new to it and they also very hard to communicate with the bosses) no hr, no finance, no pr - Nightmare bosses who can't communicate properly yet expect the best - Bosses are emotional yet can't understand other people's emotions - Too much work that is not mentioned in interview or contract at all (e.g. strict and CONSTANT socmed posting, training new staff even as normal part time employee) - Send message even outside working hours via WhatsApp - When on the job, you are expected to constantly reply to their messages even if you are busy conducting a workshop, so if you don't reply within 15mins, expect to be told off and warned - Severely understaffed and say "no budget" for new staff even though the workshop pricing is so high per customer and easily 1 instructor handle 5+ workshops at the same time - Only 1 full time art instructor, then all else is part time and maybe at most 1 more intern, so on weekdays is only 2 instructors even if busy, on weekends maximum 3 instructors if you're lucky and no one on leave or suddenly MIA, they dont have backup staff at all - Will talk bad about staff behind their back to other staff without resolving the issue or communicating with the staff about their opinions - Will literally LIE to other staff about a situation to cover their ego (e.g. saying they "fired" an employee for bad attitude when in reality is the employee quit by themselves, or that one staff they had before can handle 5 workshops at once, why you cannot, but actually there were a few staff at the time as evidenced by the staff themselves) - Very very stingy with resources, won't even let staff practice some crafts unless is leftover materials, staff expected to learn from just watching older staff conduct or YouTube video - No proper training, even older staff have their own method of learning and not uniform in teaching workshops - Often overbook workshops and not enough space for all workshops to run comfortably - Full time staff expected to stock check all 100++ workshop materials on a WEEKLY basis, even event materials which take up a lot of storage space in the small office room storage provided, and if any staff or bosses cannot find the materials or the materials not enough, the full time staff that do stock check gets blamed - Bosses constantly monitor CCTV and listen to staff talking and what they do, so cannot even talk freely without them listening, feels like a prison - Interns treated like full timers, expected to work more on low pay and no training also - If you show your talents to them, they will abuse it and expect you to do more things for them (e.g. you can do graphic design, then you will be asked to help with graphic design too even though it's not a workshop instructor job and you still have all other responsibilities on top of it) - No fixed break time and barely get any rest on busy days, sometimes even just 5min rest - You are forced to find a way to make sure all workshops end absolutely on time even though some unguided workshops are impossible to "nicely" get customers to finish, because they refuse to pay OT unless special outside events, which they will also question why end late if it does, horribly unflexible even to bigger clients and makes the staff take the blame from clients - Incredibly high turnover rate, so dont expect other staff to be experienced enough to help you much too - Unhygienic catering side, as management refuse to hire certified cafe workers for their cafe side, and only hire foreign worker maids who can barely speak a word of English and definitely don't know hygiene SOP, in fact they are required to help clean art supplies as well as baking materials and cooking too