Wallaroo Media Reviews

The business approach of Wallaroo seems to be "promise it now, figure it out later". These promises are rarely feasible or sincere, which leads to a lot of clients feeling entitled to services above and beyond what they paid for, and many employees being stuck at a salary well below their worth. Revenue sharing, semiannual raises, and quarterly bonuses were all promised during my time at Wallaroo, but none of these policies were actually administered. Management boasts about having a robust benefits offering beyond insurance and retirement savings (Doordash credits, a Calm subscription, etc.) and points to these benefits as a justification for low pay. This is disingenuous, as the monetary value of all these benefits would be covered (and then some) by a 2% raise for even the lowest-paid employees. Employees are seen as entirely replaceable, as new interns are routinely brought in from the university down the street to replace longtime employees looking for growth/raises. These students are then offered low salaries on the empty promise of future growth. This was the case for me. I started as an unpaid intern and when I let management know that my internship requirement was met and I wanted to talk about starting as a paid employee, they initially pushed back, insisting that my internship was too short. I was eventually hired full-time at a rate below market value on the promise that my salary would improve quickly if I performed well. I never received any kind of raise, even after having 4 separate conversations with management on the topic. During one of these discussions I asked what I could do better to merit a raise, and was told "you know your own strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else, so I encourage you to reflect on them and work to improve". He then told me he would have a number for me in the next few days. A week went by with no news, so I sent multiple follow-up messages in the following days. They were all ignored. My co-workers at Wallaroo were some of the most talented and hardworking people I've worked with, and we all often had to go above and beyond to try and satisfy the unrealistic promises made to clients, sometimes being required to do things outside of our job descriptions that we had no prior training for. Rather than being rewarded for our efforts, the profits Wallaroo made went into a variety of new personal ventures for the CEOs. There is no HR department either, so these issues as well as issues with diversity and inclusion could not be properly addressed and were most often downplayed or outright ignored by management if/when discussed. Wallaroo will not invest in you, no matter what lip service they pay to the importance of their employees.

Brandon has called some of the criticisms here “outdated.” They're not, and labeling them so is a testament to how out of touch the owners are with their own employees. Let’s address a few of his GlassDoor responses. “Our pay is amazing now” Salaries have increased, but “amazing” is just dishonest. Pay is well below market, especially if you’re a woman. There are countless other agencies out there that can offer you significantly more money for the same work. To Wallaroo's credit, leadership does provide transparency around salaries for each position… except their own. We still don’t know how much the owners, CEOs, and VPs make. It gives the impression that leadership pays itself well at the expense of employees. Another big problem is that the owners take a significant portion of Wallaroo revenue to fund new businesses of their own, instead of investing in employee salaries and raises. Raises have generally been equal to or less than inflation rates. Therefore, some long-term employees have technically been rewarded with pay decreases over the years. Management has promised bonuses multiple times and presented bonus structures multiple times. It's never been implemented. “That's why we do a 4-day work week, and never ask anyone to put in more than 40 hours a week” Aside from maybe the owners, no full-time employee at Wallaroo works 4 days per week. The sales and design teams will sometimes take a half-day on Friday. Ad buyers typically work well over 40 hours per week. Not only do employees work 5 days a week, but some do so during vacation days, which management seems to be unfazed by. I'm not sure if this quote is a conscious lie or a total lack of awareness from the owner of the company. Both would be concerning. “Lying - I have never asked anyone on the team to lie or mislead a client or anyone else on the team.” also, “I have never been dishonest with a client nor have I ever shortchanged one” Maybe the biggest whopper of them all. Brandon, you and the management team have asked sales, designers, and ad buyers countless times to pretend to represent other agencies (RNO1, Blend 360) who outsource their clients to us. I’m not sure how you can call this anything other than dishonest. Given these clients paid double the Wallaroo fee (1 fee to Wallaroo and another to an agency that provides no additional value), you’ve absolutely shortchanged them. It’s a practice that has recently stopped, but at the time was dishonest at best and fraudulent at worst. Other employees have been asked to lie about other things. I'll leave it to them to address. There's a more recent con to working at Wallaroo that Brandon hasn't had the opportunity to downplay on here. Wallaroo has let go of roughly half its staff in the past 4-5 months, something management tone-deafly spins as “getting lean.” Most of these employees were let go without prior warning. Some of them right before the holidays. Day-to-day, leadership can be counted on to offer kind and supportive words, but their actions tell a different story. There’s a long track record of overworking, underpaying, (perhaps unconscious) gender bias, and throwing out employees like trash when it’s financially convenient. When it comes to character, actions speak louder than words.