OMD Reviews

I’ll start with the most common complaint from those who have/still work here. The pay is disgustingly low, to the point where it is unethical. Agency pay is known for being difficult to receive pay rises as everyone is on a tier salary, where there are set limitations on how much each level can earn, regardless of complexity in each role, past experience or value you bring. Your salary will be standardised and do not expect to receive a pay rise as it will be constantly brought to your attention that your peers receive the same. I was there for two years and started as an assistant and then was promoted in an account executive role. The media assistant pay i was only for 1.5 years was unlivable and unethical. It is minimum wage, and i received more pay in my PT role in retail for less hours. As mentioned, yes the pay is low in agencies but omd has the LOWEST salary. Many people at the media assistant level have two jobs, working on weekends to be able to pay for their basic necessities. I was one of the assistants who had two jobs, and when my work found out they immediately addressed that they were concerned that I would not be able to perform my duties to my full potential as i was working on the weekends. When I noted that it was out of necessity, not desire to work more hours they said nothing. SLT and management know many of their employees work two jobs to live and quite frankly dont give a hoot. When i was promoted, it barely made a difference as i earned only $8k more. (60k including super..) so still worked two jobs. In their OMD live where they answer questions sent by employees anonymously, employees constantly spoke about the unfairness of salary and the SLT team constantly undermined the salary question and say that you are receiving the same industry pay as someone else. I left after two years and almost doubled my income so clearly they are incorrect. On top of this, they frequently have parties and events held by the company (usually lavish) and always make it a dress up theme. Now on top of struggling to pay for your groceries, the parties are always a niche dress up theme where you pay for your own costume. Depending on what team you are on, you can pay up to $50 - $200 for a costume you will never wear again and contribute nicely to landfill (despite the company pretending to be about sustainability). They also say they don’t have budget to give people pay rises but continue to throw these lavish parties and internal social events. In terms of management, most of the account managers are young and inexperienced, 90% of the time it’s the managers first time managing someone and usually that shows. The social atmosphere of this workplace lends itself to favouritism, gossip, unprofessional/microaggressive comments made in jest, etc. The agency also struggles to hire people at a junior level due to their notoriously low salary known in the industry, so often friends of friends/family are always hired. Strong nepotistic culture of people being hired and promoted, whilst overlooking more than capable and qualified candidates within the agency internally. Because of the nepo culture, most people here are usually from the same suburb, socioeconomic status and ethnicity. If you are from outside these regions you will feel left out. Before i left they hired a big group of minorities on visa’s so maybe that is changing (or theyre just exploiting them). In terms of team culture, it is very culty. If you dont have lunch and hang out with your own team you are given shady and petty comments that you “dont want to hang around your own team”. It’s very high school/cliquey and just outright weird. In saying this, you will have no sense of independence, and will be micro managed by your boss and others in your team internally. To the point that when you work from home other team members announce when theyre going to lunch, when they’re back, etc. even if you walk awaynfromnyour desk to go and get a coffee your manager will ask where you went. If you go to an external meeting, your team will expect you to commute together, even if it is out of your way or inconvenient. Theyll even expect you to meet up with them at a certain time before, much like a school excursion. Hours are long as well, especially as a junior they will give you the hard yards and say its for learning and development, often working overtime. Then they’ll expect you to be there early the next day to attend a team breakfast with your client at 8am. They will then say its a privilege as its a free breakfast, right.. Flexibility in terms of wfh is great, it’s three days in office and two days at home. But note that there is no flexibility for day to day hours. Always be in at 9 and no later (at all!) or be shunned, stay till 5:30 (even if you worked late all last week). Every team is extremely meeting heevy, processes are outdated. In the office you will hear people are constantly in meetings at their desk, constantly multi tasking and doing their day to day tasks whilst in meetings. HR has had a constant turnaround as well, so when employees complain about these issues it never changes because its a revolving door. Lastly, i was a BIPOC woman working there, and many of my other friends were BIPOC too. OMD sadly was the worst place i have experienced racism in Australia. I and my friends were constantly treated differently to our peers, consistently overlooked for and promotions (my promotion took double the time as my other counterparts despite being known as one of the strongest in the business). I experienced many racist comments from my account director and manager. When i spoke up to HR or any senior management about things said to me they would acknowledge that what was said to me was terrible and not appropriate at all, but nothing ever changed after two years. Everything else I couldve put up with, but the culture of this workplace is to laugh in the face of those that are different and treat them as less than. I was constantly the one to clean meeting rooms, pick up people’s rubbish and trash and carry peoples things whilst my white counterparts at the same level did none of this. Very upsetting.