Hit hard by the Great Resignation...for good reason. - Anonymous employee Uhuru Network Employee Review

1.0
14 Mar 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

If you thrive in an intense environment, you get to learn a lot every day. Company communication policies keep you from drowning in emails and out of your inbox. They are an agile agency, which makes it easy to plan and prioritize your work.

Cons

Part of why you learn a lot every day is because leadership is constantly overpromising, both to clients and employees. There is a "figure anything out" mentality which can be great, but not when that work comes at the expense of the client's expectations and the team's work capacity. Anything that fell short was always blamed on the team, rather than on leadership for selling projects or services out of the skillset of the employees, who were often much less experienced than promised so they could pay them less. In fact, whenever ANY work fell short, there was always finger pointing at the team rather than addressing anything internally from a communication or processes standpoint. Leadership also never ever had the team's back when misunderstandings arose. Leadership is similar to an emotionally abusive partner. They said all the right things, promised to give us all the resources and support we needed, hyped up a culture bible that promised work-life balance...and then never followed through. Employees left and weren't replaced, creating resentment and burnout and limiting the remaining employees' ability to advance in their careers because teams were already stretched too thin. Time was micromanaged, but if a task took longer than the allotted capacity, it again became the employee's fault instead of a process flaw. So employees were constantly overdelivering on value, not fully tracking time or story points, so as to not disrupt the sprint (because don't EVER disrupt the sprint) or upset the clients. Employees were gaslit about how grateful they should've been to have jobs through the first months of the pandemic, and then continually asked to work more and more without any additional compensation, despite already being underpaid, missing out on previously promised bonuses because of "company finances," never getting health insurance, and barely getting to use PTO (and forget about actually being disconnected when they were allowed to take it). Leadership was also often unavailable except in scenarios where they wanted to inflate their own egos, take credit for team successes, or blindly accept negative client feedback as fact. Even that would've been tolerable, however, if they had ever followed through on empowering senior employees to actually be able to manage their teams and implement better processes. It was promised multiple times and never actually came to fruition. None of the leadership team has any experience doing the actual day-to-day work of the team, and yet they were the ones building and controlling the processes. Finally, they often touted their willingness to take feedback from the team and work together to continually make things better - "the glass is always broken," as was often repeated - but in truth, feedback had to be endlessly positive or it was punished. Genuine concerns that were respectfully brought up were continually dismissed, ignored, and sometimes outright belittled in front of other team members. Employees who were rude or disrespectful to other team members (but never to or in front of leadership) were continually given the benefit of the doubt over those who raised concerns. People learned to bite their tongue or get labeled as "too negative" and fall out of favor with leadership. One-on-one conversation between team members, whether task-related or personal, was heavily discouraged and deemed suspicious. For all the warm fuzzies provided by the content on their website and in their culture bible, it eventually became clear that it was a very "drink the kool-aid" kind of environment perpetuated by some heavily narcissistic personalities.

Explore other reviews about Uhuru Network

5.0
5 Nov 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Leadership: forward-thinking leaders lead the company. They empower their employees to think and decide for themselves. They encourage self-improvement and will push you to the best version of yourself. They lead by example and have a good pulse on the organization. - Challenging work environment: Uhuru acquired my agency, and I was asked to own the position I would be stepping into. As someone that ran their own company, I loved the idea of the challenge. I've been supported and challenged in ways that have expanded my capabilities and knowledge. This environment isn't for everyone, but if you like being empowered to make your own decisions and creative problem solving, there's no job more rewarding. - Career-oriented: Uhuru truly wants to see every one of their employees succeed - in career and personal life. They've created the systems and have dedicated personnel that focuses on the advancement of every employee. They want to know what you care about, what you want from your career and construct the way to get there. This isn't the company for those that want a "job" - punch the clock, be left alone, and go home to forget about your day. - Remote Work: You can literally work from anywhere at any time. This isn't a "work-from-home" job where you have to be at your desk between set hours. They hire adults and expect you to do the work you've set out to do. Basically, show up to meetings, hyper communicate with your team, and get your work done. This kind of environment is not for those that need their handheld. It takes desire and discipline. Growth-minded: the entire organization embodies the growth-mindset, and it starts at the top with the owners! When a company is led by people who constantly seek to grow, then the byproduct of that is that every employee has a voice. Input is encouraged, and as we always say, "the glass is always broken." This way of operating isn't suited for the type that likes to complain about things not working or going their way. They acknowledge things aren't perfect and encourage them to bring solutions. The company is growing rapidly, which can be uneasy for people with a fixed mindset but is exhilarating for those who want to grow. To sum it up, I decided to sell my agency to join an amazing team. It felt like home since day 1. They have under promised and over delivered on everything we agreed on so far. I look forward to the next 5 years with Uhuru!

Cons

- They do not have health insurance, yet! I know this is something they are working on. It has to be challenging to give healthcare to a globally distributed workforce. - Didn't get to go on a company retreat this year! (maybe that was because of the pandemic and not so much the company)

1
2.0
7 Feb 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

AVA Acquisitions acquired Uhuru Network in late 2022. They are now called Scale at Speed Agency. I started with Uhuru earlier that year. While Uhuru had some issues generating revenue and retaining clients, things were promising. We had a solid benefits package and ample PTO.

Cons

Things went downhill there after the acquisition. Our new management was completely out of touch with our pain points, and their only response was to "keep working harder". They made big agency promises to clients, and we were a very small crew. When clients saw this and did not get the results they were promised, they got frustrated and left. We lost revenue at an incredible pace. Management continued to ignore this by continuing luxurious travel to meet with clients and giving their version of motivational speeches to tell us that if we kept working harder with less, things would work out. They began to systemically lay off American employees like myself to save money. They are using AI to help what remaining employees they have left to keep content operations afloat. Everyone there is burned out and wearing way too many hats, and that was the case even while I was still there. Their only active employees are based in places such as Serbia, Ecuador, and Mexico--they can pay those talented people far less legally and not provide benefits. Bottom line: Scale at Speed Agency is an exploitative, deceptive, and dying place. Avoid it if you are a prospective employee or client.

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