*Please note that I'm returning after years to leave a review for this company as this is to this day still the worst professional experience I've ever had.
I was only part of the company for less than a month, but that was more than enough time to know that the company sowed a culture of disrespect and that I should not waste my time and talent with it. 3 reasons why I would not recommend anyone to work here:
1. Culture of disrespect from CEO
- There were already red flags before I even started with the company. During the negotiation stage of my interviews, the CEO told me that I "should be grateful" that I was even given an offer, a very clear indication of how she saw and treated her team.
- The initial contract that offered to me was very different AFTER I accepted and resigned from my previous company. The company was supposed to sponsor me
for an Employment Pass, but the CEO and HR gave extremely vague reasons why they could not again AFTER I accepted and resigned from my previous company. At the end, I was given an inferior package and I had to work remotely.
- More red flags: the CEO would make the junior employees repeat what she said, like a kindergarten student. She would raise her voice voice as if reprimanding children. She was constantly interrupting people who would respond to her, which would always be non-constructive feedback (attack on the person).
- The last straw for me was, during an all-hands virtual meeting with the whole company included, the CEO talked to me and ended with "...I don't know why I even hired a Head of Marketing". This was completely unprompted and uncalled for (see reasons below).
2. Lack of strategy and plans for the Marketing department
- I was not given any time for an alignment meeting on the department's current state and the CEO's vision for the department, albeit me asking for 2 weeks. The best I got was a Trello board with scattered bullet points, which was more of a to-do list. I gave my feedback to come up with a more long-term plan, which the CEO quickly shut down.
- The CEO was quick to blame the team for not hitting targets, even without proper alignment. She was more interested in finding out who to put the blame on, rather than coming up with solutions to do better.
3. Top down way of running the business
- The CEO required EVERYBODY to write and send to her end-of-day reports, detailing what you did for the day, what you could improve, and what your plans are for the following day. I did this for a couple of days, but I did not get any feedback or even acknowledgment. This is an incredible waste of everyone's time, and only shows the amount of trust (or lack thereof) that the CEO puts into the employees.
- Multiple instances of the CEO shutting down ideas and recommendations. It seemed that the CEO is looking for executors of her ideas and nothing else.
- There was a COMPETE DISREGARD of everybody else's expertise in their own fields. The CEO did not trust anyone to do their job properly. I would recommend hiring interns if the CEO still does not allow her people to do what they do best. I actually would not recommend interns to join the company; I'd hate for anybody's first work experience to be with this company and CEO.
