Leadership is plagued with troubling issues and does not place importance on the same values upheld by the rest of staff (the latter tends to be progressive and forward thinking; a far cry from the stuffy, conservative viewpoints held by the trustees and the organization’s leadership team). People managers are usually adept at handling the “professional” side of their roles but are fantastically inept at effectively leading their respective teams. They are sorely lacking in emotional intelligence and people management skills, which in turn creates low morale and in some toxic cases, a hostile work environment. C-suite level leadership turns a blind eye to such behavior, despite the very real issues it creates for employees’ well-being in the workplace. Human Resources is a sham department, always siding with the upper management leader making a cushy six-figure salary over the employee who actually raises valid concerns, even going so far as to describe concerning behavior in upper management as “empowering” to employees. Another con I noticed during my time at Helmsley was the unnecessarily long approval process for even the simplest of tasks. Projects that should be quick and easy to accomplish have a disturbing tendency to languish for months on end due to a seemingly endless circus act of hoops to jump through and approvals to receive. The best way I can describe this is to take the myth of Sisyphus and transplant it into a prosaic 21st century office setting. As another reviewer has pointed out, trying to schedule anything is a miserable exercise in futility, with many people seemingly unable to meet due to a burden of unnecessary and excessive meetings. This, I think, best exemplifies the direction this company is going in—all talk and no action. Because the organization is small and hires at a snail’s pace (the shockingly long and arduous hiring process deserves a review in and of itself), there is little to no opportunity for growth there.
