Pros
Anyone must respect the CEO for the tremendous drive and hustle it took her to create and grow this brand and its worthwhile giving mission to its current level. It is clear she wants to be a positive force in the world and has the “go-getter” mindset to make things happen. The staff-level employees are competent, kind, and collaborative. I met a handful of people here I consider lasting friends and will remain in touch with regularly.
Cons
Top 10 Reasons Why I Left Thrive Causemetics Reason #10: The organization’s “leaders” are fully, emotionally, committed to having employees in-office five days per week, under the assumption close employee proximity significantly improves both collaboration and productivity, which is an objectively false assumption. Reason #09: There are no complete business processes in this organization and “executives” do not understand the difference between a system and a tool. Just because you have a new ERP tool, doesn’t mean you have a stable supply chain. Reason #08: No one in the product development team has a technical degree. There are no cosmetic scientists, chemical engineers, packaging engineers, dermatologists, etc. It is a marketing and procurement organization using trademarks with pseudoscientific names like “Buildable Smart Pigment Technology” or “Semi-Permanent Micropigment Technology.” I have not been able to find any of the “proprietary product technology” trademarks the company uses in the US Patent and Trademark office database. Reason #07: Employees who challenge “executives” with critical questions or challenge the status quo with oppositional input are ignored or viewed as a problem. As one example, members of the customer experience (CX) team repeatedly asked legitimate, relevant, and challenging questions to “executives” in all-hands meetings. The “leaders” ultimately responded to this by creating a calendar of events and distribution list the CX team was not on and eliminated the team from future staff meetings. The “executives” did not tell the CX team they were eliminating them from all-hands meetings and completely ghosted the CX team from all corporate communication (including sharing business results and goals), without any discussion or announcement. When asked why the team wasn’t invited to all hands meetings anymore, the “leaders” said they wanted to focus on building the “in-office culture” and uninvited the CX team becase they were remote, yet had other remote employees in the meetings and even recorded the meeting but did not share it with the CX team. As a result, many CX employees like me chose to focus on our “out of organization” culture. Reason #06: As indicated above, proximity bias is VERY prominent in this organization. If you’re not in the office every day putting in face time with the “executives” you are not important to the “leaders.” All company events are now scheduled onsite despite ONE THIRD of the company being remote employees, and little to no consideration is given to remote workers. As an example of this bias toward proximity, during multiple all employees Zoom meetings the CEO would sit directly in front of the camera with her back to it, facing the people in the meeting room, blocking the view of the room for remote employees. Feedback was provided multiple times by multiple people with no change in the behavior, so the CEO continuing this behavior spoke volumes to the remote employees about their value relative to those physically present in the office. Reason #05: The organization has the most bizarrely worded annual performance bonus policy I have ever seen, and basically says “executives” can revoke your annual performance bonus at any time for any reason up until the money is physically in your bank account, so if you want your bonus for the prior year, plan on staying through the mid-March payout date (which is the last-minute deadline for them to receive an IRS tax credit). I chose not to provide two weeks’ notice because of this policy, as I did not want to risk having my bonus arbitrarily revoked on an “executive” whim during my last two weeks and chose instead to resign effective immediately the next business day after the bonus money landed in my bank account. This is not what I would have preferred but organizational trust was so low at this point it wasn’t worth the risk. Reason #04: There is an incredible amount of instability in the “leadership” team, and it was very difficult to keep track of who still worked at the company because managers came and went at such a rapid pace. There were multiple occasions I reached out to people only to discover they were no longer working there, which is jarring in an organization this small. Reason #03: “Leaders” are unaware of their own unconscious biases and put them on full display every day because there is no unconscious bias training and the culture does not support elimination of these behaviors. I personally witnessed the following unconscious biases from “executives” just in the last 3 months prior to my exit: horn bias, halo bias, proximity bias, recency bias, gender bias, confirmation bias, conformity bias, affinity bias, status quo bias, anchor bias, authority bias, overconfidence bias, perception bias, affect bias, and idiosyncratic rating bias. Reason #02: I witnessed this organization go from a positive, highly engaged, and vibrant culture whose people were passionate about making a difference in the world to experiencing more than 70% employee turnover in one year and transitioning from being wholesome and inspirational to being a soul-sucking transactionally focused organization devoid of respect for its employees, especially those with remote jobs. Reason #01: The “senior leadership” team created a ‘prize bucket’ located in the CEOs office for anyone who comes to the CEO and shows her they took notes and captured action items in a meeting so they can grab a prize from the bucket. The last time I grabbed a toy from a prize bucket I was 7 years old, in a dentist’s office, and didn’t cry during my teeth cleaning.
