Riley Hayes Advertising Reviews

Beneath the "happy family" facade is a broken home. Many of my colleagues and I were consistently demoralized by a lack of appreciation/trust and a general lack of opportunities to do "creative" work, afraid of unknowingly upsetting the wrong people, and always ready to be let go for any number of reasons (legitimate or otherwise). Preferential treatment is obvious and any kind of internal constructive criticism is met with silence at best and contempt at worst. The absence of HR is more problematic here than other agencies I've worked at - and many concerns are left unaddressed to the tune of "just pretend it's not there and it will go away." My most heinous personal experience is when a supervisor, upon finding out I had put in my notice, called me a homophobic slur then laughed it off. I brought it up in my exit interview. To my knowledge, he's still employed there.

Unfortunately this company does not seem to be the entity it was when I first began working there. Over the last 9 or so months there has been a cultural shift and general lack of caring or empathy for its employees. Many people were plagued by a fear of getting let go for almost anything, a bad meeting, a bad conversation, a bad look ..... there was a real sense of fear that took over. There was also a general distrust of people lower on the "totem pole", meaning if someone made a good or pertinent suggestion that was genuinely intended to help and clearly the best option, it would easily and often be overridden by someone higher up with a differing opinion and bigger ego. There is a true lack of humility here and lack of respect for allowing people to be masters over their domain, it's more that people are allowed to be masters over their domain unless otherwise stated, then you need to keep quiet. Lastly, the company has continually let go of people that were key pieces of the business in producing work for the clients, it seems they do not value the talent they have.