A good segway into a PR career - but not a promising long term fit based on current politics & dynamics
Pros
The CEO was always very friendly and personable towards me and other employees at all company events I attended during my tenure there, which I am very grateful for. It would help remind us of the value of the hard work we put in as well as our individual values as employees. Also, whenever he sent out company emails in response to employee feedback, it did seem like he did care about his workers and heard their suggestions/concerns. Opportunity to work from home (remote Fridays): Matter is admittedly ahead of the curve by giving its employees to work from home on Fridays in addition to other remote options. In a growing digital age, having any option to work remotely is an incredibly beneficial option for employees, as it is more doable than ever before. Matter's dedication to volunteering is top-notch and always improving each year. The company logs in an impressive amount of hours each year as well as participating in a diverse scope of volunteer projects. Some of my best memories are of volunteer projects that I got to be a part of with my fellow co-workers. Feedback given on writing/pitching can be very helpful and can be instrumental in helping young professionals grow in their craft & career. However, sometimes feedback needs to be directly asked for. While some were disorganized, many of the company social events were very involved and creative. The venues picked were never short of beautiful and picturesque, while food & other accommodations were always on-par.
Cons
Picking right up from the pro outlined above about company social events - in my experience, a few key company events relied very heavily on drinking to enable employees to socialize/get involved with bonding activities with other employees, which added pressure for people to drink in order to effectively participate & fit in. This may be a pro for some, but it wasn't for me personally and it often made me dread/feel uncomfortable at certain social events. As other reviews have mentioned, there are employees in upper & middle management that make work/fitting in difficult for well-meaning lower level employees. It can be very cliquey and movement up in the company is often more based on favoritism among management & not as much on work ethic. I had heard of this shortly after my start at the company and did not want to believe it - until I experienced it firsthand myself. Management also consists of many people who have worked with Matter since or close to its inception, so they are seasoned Matter experts but don't have as much outside experience that can possibly make it easier to emphasize/express patience with employees who are starting out & still learning. Many teams and individuals are stretched too thin. Rather than make the investment of hiring more people to help spread out the workload, Matter would often choose to add more responsibilities and commitments to current employees who already had more than enough on their plates. I worked on a very small team and the amount of work that was constantly being given wasn't feasible in both achieving the highest form of productivity possible as well as a fair work/life balance. This caused many people to resign in a short time frame and burnouts and meltdowns were frequent among team members. There's a shocking amount of blaming & a no tolerance policy when it comes to mistakes. Due to the fast-paced and demanding environment of PR, mistakes are sometimes unavoidable and are bound to happen! However, managers would act very aggressive and unforgiving, & spent more time giving harsh reprimands & demeaning lectures in front of other team members vs. spending the time to work around the mistake and communicate privately with the employee/employees to discuss what happened. Among the employees, there was a lot of throwing each other under the bus - most likely because many were just afraid of losing their jobs/getting a bad mark on their performances. This kind of pressure added a lot of tension and made for a stressful work environment. Whenever an employee struggled or fell short in terms of performance/expectations - management seemed more eager to push that employee out vs. actually working with that employee to help them improve. Some expectations were clearly outlined, but many others were more intuitive & there is only so much guessing an employee can do about what management wants without direct guidance. Establishing a clearer communication as well as a willingness to work with an employee could have easily bridged the gap in their performance, but this effort was often not made on Matter's part. Another reviewer mentioned that there is an uncomfortable amount of "sucking up" to clients within Matter, and this criticism hits the nail right on the head. Demanding clients are a given when it comes to working in PR and with clients in tech & healthcare. However, Matter teams would often over-extend themselves & make far-fetching and unrealistic promises in order to appease clients - which piggybacks to the employees being stretched too thin point made earlier in this review. More often than not, this led to management setting unreasonable expectations with the client that could not be met within the promised time frame and thus cause more frustration and disappointment on the client's part.
