- A toxic workplace culture permeates from the CEO & the SMT downwards. Scratch beneath the surface and you will quickly realise that they are mostly a group of charlatans who have no real-world management or leadership experience, or have any idea on how to build a great, lasting business that creates long term shareholder value. The long-term health of the company is always sacrificed to meet the next quarters targets so that bonuses can be earnt.
- Nepotism is rife within the SMT. The CEO has hired many of his friends to run various parts of the business who then hire their friends. Frankly many of them do not have the skillset required to successfully transform the business. I have also witnessed many highly qualified people be either forced or managed out of the company because they were not part of the inner circle and considered a rival to these people. There are no long-term career opportunities if you are not in this group.
- Expense policies and travel spending limits for regular employees are very strict and limited. These policies are not followed by many of the senior leadership at the company. If you are asking your employees to go without you should as well.
- The company is not an EdTech SaaS company which it likes to pretend, but rather a shell company owned by private equity that acquires ad-hoc smaller startups. Once a business is acquired the SMT sets about piece-by-piece destroying the value of the acquisition through a combination of redundancies/not replacing people, putting prices through the roof and cost-cutting. As a result the products atrophy in terms of keeping up to date with new features/functions and become uncompetitive on pricing, exposing themselves to competitors. The acquisition strategy is abysmal – many of the products are totally unrelated in any way so there is no synergy potential. It would have been much cheaper to buy an MIS company. With so many different and varied products the SMT don’t understand or invest in the future of any of them so their life on the market is ultimately limited. Being acquired by Tes is a fatal decision for any promising startup
- Because the SMT don’t understand SaaS or Education, rather than being a product-led organisation the company is obsessed with constantly reforming its internal business systems and structures. Rather than make the company more efficient, the constant disruption causes massive lost opportunity cost. Instead of spending every hour of the day making great software for schools and talking to customers on how we can make their lives better, much of our time is spent instead implementing new systems, restructuring teams or integrating with existing systems chasing a utopian vision that never happens. There is no opportunity for creativity or innovation in any area of the company
- Growth targets are met by a combination of rolling redundancies, significant price increases (whilst offering no additional value to schools), new acquisitions and not replacing people. Every year people are asked to do more and be more ‘efficient’
- The company town halls are unbearable to watch. It consists of the SMT cracking lame jokes to each other and reading a Powerpoint, demonstrating their complete lack of knowledge about Edtech or Education and their tone deaf management approach
- Employees are frequently gaslighted about ‘investments’ made into the business, headcount and new roles. However these are never enough to replace the redundancies/attrition, so headcount actually goes lower. Most importantly no value is placed on high-performing or talented individuals or retaining them in the company. As a result they leave for better companies that reward them fairly
- The company values are not practiced or modelled by the SMT in any way. Yet they never spare a moment to lecture everyone else on them and the importance of living the values and the need to attend culture workshops.
- The CEO is ultimately the HR department which is why hiring and replacing any team member is extremely difficult to the point of dysfunction. Simple decisions like replacing someone can take months. Salary reviews are impossible to get. If you ask for a review you are told they will do a review at the end of the year when normal increases occur (so the review actually never happens). Increases aren’t done scientifically or at market rates, but within the constraints of a budget. Many high-earners at Tes are only being paid a fraction of what they are worth or revenue they generate
