Too Busy Cleaning Up Disasters To Avoid The Next One
Pros
They're too caught up in their own heads to know what's happening outside of Salt Lake City, so they're not annoying micromanagers
Cons
We were a family-owned company in OR/WA that got bought out by JGP. We were coming from a CEO who truly cared, had great insurance, and had a really talented, collaborative team of 250+. Blake Jackson and his executive team marched into our Portland, OR HQ in early 2021 in advance of what was billed as “more like a merger of two families than a buyout”. They assured us that we’d keep our insurance, we’d keep our jobs, etc. But employee safety, local culture, statewide mask mandates clearly didn’t matter, the rules didn’t apply to them. The Jackson Group team refused to mask the entire time, despite all of our team wearing masks as required. Then came a few months of absolutely ZERO communication. They made no attempt to find out who we were, how we did things, or how we could integrate our operations. They wouldn’t tell us a single thing about them, didn’t allow us to contact them to plan anything. We kept asking our executive team questions about what we should be doing, and the answer we kept getting back from Jackson Group was “We’ll figure it out”. Keep in mind that Jackson Group has been gobbling up dealerships all over the West for years – this isn’t their first buyout rodeo, but you’d never know it from their implementation. Zero transition team or plan. Zero communication. Zero getting to know teams or talents. Of course it was a disaster. They refused to shut down for even a single day to switch things over, and nothing worked for the first several weeks. I mean NOTHING. No entering trucks into inventory, no writing up deals, no posting truck sales, you name it. The workhorse team members on the JGP side seemed genuinely surprised that it didn’t work. Apparently the JGP inner circle snow-jobbed their own people too, assuring them that everything was going to go smoothly this time. How could it possibly have worked??? You can’t absorb an operation 1/3 your size by “winging it”. Their CFO excused the lack of planning and communication on them still cleaning up the mess from their previous seat-of-the-pants acquisitions, so this is not a one-off whoopsie – they’re either not learning from their mistakes or thinking that this is an acceptable way to do business. In the middle of this chaos, Blake Jackson was still pushing hard to add several MORE locations in our regions as quickly as possible, buying up land and buildings and hiring for the new locations even while the current team was being iced out. Oh, and those early promises before the deal was finalized? You’ll keep your great insurance? You’ll have a job? HA! They demoted everyone in middle management, fired entire departments, and swapped out cheapo insurance and told us only a few days before it took effect. Forced to sign an online employee handbook that didn’t even comply with Oregon employment laws, didn’t get a copy so we could look over. Ex: Yes, you CAN get a paper paycheck if you want one, and no employers CAN’T enforce a mandatory arbitration that doesn’t include required disclosures. This is who they are and what they do at Jackson Group. It’s like the old-school car dealership mentality from the 1980s: top-down authoritarian, say whatever you have to to get the deal signed, on to the next opportunity. Their information system isn’t much newer. Seriously, they’re still using .xls. Employers can only get away with this kind of garbage if employees go along with it. I was leery of the online reviews before the buyout, but I wanted to do right by my former CEO and give Jackson Group a chance - they certainly knew all the right things to get the buyout finalized. Jackson Group's actions spoke volumes in how they treat their employees and run their operations. I was proud to join some of the most talented and ethical colleagues I’ve ever had in seeking employment elsewhere after seeing how Jackson Group does business - I can't work for an employer I don't trust.