Teambuilding is a company designed to 'bring teams together' when in reality they treat their employees like underpaid workhorses, ignore market trends, and like many startups, operate without direction or organization most of the time. There is a massive sense of toxic positivity here that if you aren't following along with the status quo, you are not favored. If you offer any negative feedback or alternative suggestions on restructuring things or event ideas, you are accused of being abrasive or negative.
They recently laid off half of their sales team because of 'downsizing,' but in reality it was because of poor management and lack of foresight in market trends. (Are company wide layoffs really 'bringing teams together' here?) The layoffs were half of the sales team and members of nearly every other department, and it was done so with a complete lack of class, and zero compassion for the team members both losing their jobs and the ones remaining. The profiles of the laid-off employees were deactivated mid meeting as their manager was letting them go, it was very quick and cold, the opposite of what their mantra is all about.
Their core values are centered around integrity and having your back...This action was done with zero integrity, the team was told to their faces by the leadership (and in writing) that our jobs were secure 2 months ago, and there would be no layoffs. They didn't even bother to have HR or upper management at the meeting. The leadership here is so disorganized and there are constant departures. In the year and a half I worked there we never had an HR person until about a month ago. Interesting timing to onboard an HR person and then fire most of your staff a couple of weeks later...
The leadership of the two people running the company is poorly organized at best and they are clearly a couple that had a great idea and are trying to squeeze as much money out of it as possible before it implodes. They play extreme favorites to the ones that suck up to them the most and particularly to the event hosts (the best creative talent this company has). They pull the classic start-up move trying to give their employees cute perks like lifestyle credits and branded swag, telling us we are rockstars every day!!! When most of the team really is trying to push for things like fully paid maternity and paternity leave, better health insurance, and better compensation plans for the sales reps. The sales reps are overlooked constantly, while the event hosts are continuously celebrated and revered, it was extremely cliquey and so painfully obvious in all-hands meetings what teams were favored and what teams were ignored and not cared for. The sales team worked their butts off selling the product often without much training, (some events are honestly terrible offerings but the sales team does a great job selling them to clients often without any or little training, no idea of the event agenda, and unclear about when it can be offered). The commission structure was increasingly taken away from us while I worked there, and given back to the company (aka, the leaders). They took away compensation from us and put it back into their own pockets through a restructuring of what counted as a rep's commission - which always resulted in outrage from the team and many questions asked, but always denied.
I have no idea what will happen to this company since many people are returning to work, given how it was running when I was laid off I can't imagine it will succeed for much longer. For the companies that are staying remote - this brand is not staying relevant since the management isn't keeping up fast enough to come up with any new virtual events for clients. I wouldn't be shocked if they continued on their greed warpath and sold it to a competitor, and/or reopened their parent company. I hope you treat the current employees better than you did to the talent you laid off.
The ONLY thing I am grateful for is the amazing sales team who fought for severance for those of us that were laid off. It was given to us post-firing along with a lame apology on how poorly they mishandled things, admitting they were harsh and apologized for lying to us 2 months ago. At least they know they handled it atrociously.
