My Review of My Time at FAM International Security. Facts only.
Pros
Starting Salary, office job, fast paced environment. The growth potential is there, all you must do is make sure you do not step on any toes, as there are cliques set up within the company, and if you get on the bad side of the clique, you will more than likely be terminated. Company Bonuses, company luncheons, friendly employees. If you show that you can do the work, you will be rewarded.
Cons
The cons of working at FAM International Security is as seen below: 1) Training. The training is lackluster at best. You will often be put in situations where you will have questions, and the answer to the question will likely be, "Did you read the file?" (Files will be covered in answer 3) In addition to this, there have been numerous instances where new employees were "trained" by employees who've been employed for less than six (6) months. I can clearly remember going into work on multiple days to see a new employee sitting doing nothing. I'd ask for how long, sometimes it would be 30 minutes, other times it would be hours. Due to the lack of proper training, errors occur. When errors occur, instead of taking ownership of the errors made, the blame game occurs. Who fault is it? Instead of coaching errors to ensure they don't happen, you get written up. After you get written up, there is still no coaching. They want you to figure it out on your own. If you have questions about your errors, the response has been, "I can find (insert error) you should be able to as well. This does not build a winning environment, and it starts from the top down. 2) Files. Working in this office, there were multiple accounts going on multiple trips. To keep track of these trips, every single email correspondence must be printed and placed in file folders. For some files, this is not an issue, however, a good amount of these files are literally larger than most of my college textbooks. Here's the issue. Unless you've worked that file, or you've been there for years, you will not know how to navigate the files effectively. There is a program in place that is supposed to help keep all information, however, management has failed to implement the process effectively, so rarely any of the workers (with the exception of the team in the back of the operations room, I will give props where props is due) update the program. The entirety of the system is sloppy, but they've been working on a new program to fix all of this. I can't say whether it will be a success or not. That will lie entirely in the hands of the management team implementing the program correctly. 3) Toxic work environment. Never have I worked for a company where the leadership publicly berates their employees in front of other employees. My mind was blown away when I saw that. This attitude trickles down from the top to the bottom. This leads to distrust among the workers and the management team. I've seen an employee ask a question, management completely disrespects the employee in front of a new hire instead of taking that employee to the conference room to engage in a healthier conversation. Again, this is from the top to the bottom. It's gotten so bad that some of the employees would rather sit in silence and do their work to avoid the viper pit environment created. Every shift has something to say bad about the next shift. It's the culture there. 4) Job Security. This workplace environment creates a sense of dread if you make a mistake. I'll take my personal story for an example. I came to work to do three things. 1) Work. 2) get paid. 3) Go home. Under the tutelage of my previous manager, I was set up for success. He was the best part of FAM International. If I had an issue, I would bring it up with him, and he would work with me to solve my issue. He made sure I was fully prepared to handle anything that came my way. Unfortunately, he is no longer at FAM, and I was chosen to be his replacement, during my meeting, I was told I would be a manager in training, to see if I was the right fit for the position. If I wasn't, I would have the opportunity to retain my previous position. I would receive training (see point 1) to do the job successfully. I never received the training. I've asked repeatedly to get trained, however, it never happened. So, I did what I could to keep a skeleton shift doing work that a full shift should be doing (at this time, we'd lost 3 of our 6-night shift employees, a new employee would not appear for another 4 months.) Every day I would ask, "Is there anything I am doing wrong? Is there anything I can do to improve? If you all don't tell me what I'm doing wrong, I can't improve." Never got training. Now. Let me ask you a rhetorical question. How can an employee, under good training, go from a specialist to a manager in under a year, get fired with not a single meeting, a single write-up, nothing? However, that's management's decision, and I respect that. In terms of job security, I came to work with the mentality that I can be fired any day. I can promise I'm not the only one with that mentality. Management. An effective leader is a person with a passion for a cause that is larger than they are. Someone with a dream and a vision that will better society, or at least, some portion of it. - Sandra Larson. As things are now, all management will not set you up for success. My goal as a manager at FAM International Security was to ensure that I set my team and the next shift up for success. I was running a six-man team with three men for four months. I continually asked for assistance, they decided to have another manager stay four hours into my shift. You would think that this would be a good time to train the new manager. See point 1. When the manager wasn't working on his own work, he'd leave early. Unfortunately, the current management at FAM International Security will not set you up for success. If you point that out to them, they'll let you know, "I'm sorry you feel that way." This place has the potential to be one of the best companies in South Florida, however, with the current leadership, I can't see that happening. They brought on a new Director of Operations, and even though I got laid off, I do feel that he has the potential to bring a change to the culture at FAM International Security.