Pros
Get to work with many great people Solid Benefits
Cons
Please read below if: You are considering working for PCV because of its stated commitment to DEI and BIPOC Communities or Want to understand the culture and turnover at PCV; On the surface, PCV seems like a wonderful place to work for those who care about advancing DEI and BIPOC entrepreneurship. And in fairness to most of my current and former coworkers, they are in fact about this mission. So when you have resignations just about every month from multiple analysts, associates, managers, associate directors, directors and C-level team members across the majority of PCV teams over the past year and a half, including a few recent hires who were only with the organization for a few months, that should tell you something isn’t right. When speaking to us about the turnover at staff meetings, our CEO repeatedly attributes it to organizational restructuring and individual non-alignment with her DEI agenda. Beyond the fact the latter is a dishonest insinuation against the character of former employees who are, thus, not able to defend themselves, this explanation falls flat. This is because the recent turnover includes individuals who had strong DEI track records and were hired to advance her restructuring efforts. The problem at PCV is our CEO. Many of us consider her to be narcissistic, insecure and vindictive. I can imagine that this is the result of a few things. First, any form of disagreement being taken personally-making collaboration, a stated PCV value, non-existent. Second, she makes every conversation about her, driving many into silence when talking about the negative impacts of her decisions on their work flows and work life balance. Third, she is not self-aware nor self-accountable.However, she is quick to hold everyone else accountable for her failings-including compelled engagement in professional development workshops that are only needed for her. Fourth, she is abusive and comes across as a bully in the way she talks to people, having made multiple current and former coworkers cry in the process. These issues are compounded by her questionable integrity. An example of this can be seen with her withholding information about a potential COVID outbreak for an in person retreat during the Omicron outbreak which many coworkers had expressed concern over. Programmatically, the organization is focused on creating a Good Jobs Innovation Lab to to help early-stage employers better support their employees. Advancing workers rights is a good thing to be sure. However, if the focus is on advancing BIPOC entrepreneurs, and most are solopreneurs as shown by our own and industry based data, then why is this Lab the focus? Staff has been chastised and dressed down in front of their colleagues for asking this question-being told we are too in the weeds. It seems as if we are treating BIPOC entrepreneurs as test subjects and marketing tools for funding purposes . BIPOC communities are repeatedly subjected to this practice-and are sick of this behavior. More importantly, for a company which preaches DEI, this practice is not equitable- Additionally, can an organization really push a Good Jobs agenda like this without taking care of its own employees first? Beyond what I previously shared about the CEO making staff cry, the wages and benefits have been significantly less than industry and Bay Area non-profit standards. Also, when she actively avoids discussing and sharing data with staff about internal salary and wages, it convinces all of us she has something to hide-and we all discuss salary among each other anyway. The information that came out of these conversations led many other former coworkers of mine to leave and many current colleagues to look for better opportunities. There are many great organizations to work for if you care about DEI and BIPOC Entrepreneurship. Due to what comes off as self-serving, rude and poverty pimping behavior by the CEO, PCV is not one of them. Changing that requires the Board to change CEOs.