Pros
Nice view. Value driven minded employees.
Cons
It's sad that Fairphone claims it care about people and sell goodworking condition in China and in the mines, do not look at itself first. Fairphone may be good for the planet, I wont say so for people. The company wants itself to be seen as what it sells to the public : a value driven company, thought leader. game-changing and positive. By not wanting a "negative culture" they , closing their eyes on actual problems, they created that negative, dangerous, culture. Let's have a closer look at the values : transparency, creativity, collaboration, optimism and change. OPTIMISM and CHANGE The turnover is absolutely crazy. From a picture taken summer 2018, I counted at leas 25 persons not in anymore (on a 65 people company at that time). When some companies have in their yearly KPI to have 5% turnover, Fairphone, seems it has not understood the value of people - or call them human ressource is it makes more sense. So if you entered the company, yes, you'll see smiling people, it's because they are new and not frustrated yet, because like many of us they are proud to work for such a world-changing purpose. Older have left, disillusioned, frustrated ,sick, fired (sneakily pushed to the exit door with unfair ultimatum or pushed to the exit with no official reason ...). These people are regarded as plague-ridden by the apostle of radical-optimism instead of wondering what's wrong in the copmany, trying to help and find a company solution. Team's are under-staffed, under-skilled, under-managed. Most employees would work lie crazy for this company and eventually, not getting any appreciation, no pay raise, see their job outsourced. They'll have t abide by stupid request from their manager, making them alienated. The only answer "negative mindset people" (I mean, people in distress) get is "it's a personal problem between you and your manager" or "there's nothing we can do, you'd better resign", making them feeling even more like failure. Many former employees needs therapist to convince themselves they are not such a failure but the company's management is faulty. @Fairphone : yoga, bootcamp, fruits are not gonna solve management issues, instead manage your employees expectations, set clear roles and responsabilties (consultants included), admit when a manager is not good... And the worse, is that when some teams look like they are doing better than others, instead of taking it as an example, MT founds it suspicious : maybe this team has not enough pressure, its people are not drained according to Fairphone’s norm, maybe it should be scaled down. A happy team is not the norm, not even a target. Work hard, cry hard, resign, be replaced by a cheap one! The only equity at Fairphone is the level of stress and understaffing the team should have. Wait !What ? There is no equity in salary at Fairphone (FAIR-phone) ? Most employees are underpaid (For FP HR management : you should be aware that paying the Dutch minimum wage when you live in Amsterdam is a joke). When people started to complain they set up a salary grid, but never applied it. 2 people with the same position at Fairphone can have huge salary difference, and usually salaries are 20% under the market. COLLABORATION and CREATIVITY Don't think you're gonna join an innovative tech company. They have absolutely no ownership on product design, outsourced to a consultancy company that is blindly trusted by a management team that has no tech literacy and that does not trust and empower its own employees. If the consultant was in line with the company's value and wanted to help the company employees growing in their role, that would not be a problem. We all need to learn from experienced people right? It's great to have someone who knows about the industry. But it never cross the mind of MT or HR-that the company employees skills set should have been a priority. Instead they outsourced everything that is too cumbersome for them although employees are always remember to do their best to save costs. Unfortunately, he's not really value but money/business driven (I mean its own business, not Fairphone's one) and, by preventing Fairphone's employee accessing Fairphone 3 project information, by preventing key actors to communicate and to work together, by piting managers against employee, he managed to get every one around in a burnout or resigning. Which is smart of him : the company now can only rely on his EXTREMELY expensive services. TRANSPARENCY Reorganizations... when the company decides to restructure : it takes month, there's no sustainable strategy and lower layers of management are not consulted (not even talking about hands-on employees). Some people are asked to leave for no reason while some other (especially external MT/consultant friends) are given a role with no reason, no explanations... I wish Fairphone could change, I wished Fairphone could have been a modern and empowering company that trust its own employees to highlight issues and solve problem, I wished that so long but I don't believe in it anymore. The company will survive for sure, there's always young motivated underpaid people who would want to work for it. The atmosphere in some team, I believe, is very pleasant and fun, so you can always take a -burnout- chance, and see how you live it.