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I’ve read this review a number of times, and I actually made a list of your points to talk about with my team. I can promise you that I do take them seriously, and I can also promise you that I don’t deny my (many, many) mistakes, but try to learn from each of them.
When I brought up the various problems that you have raised in your review, the reaction was the same across the board – “This is about YJT???” It’s not always like that when we discuss negative reviews – either from exit interviews or from GlassDoor, where we all nod and admit something’s true. I have to admit, I’m not sure where a lot of this came from, either. It sure doesn’t sound like the firm I am at.
Let me speak to a few of your points, though. There have been some negative posts about Fridays at Four, and it’s something we are questioning now because of these comments. It started as a nice way to wrap up the week, but there have been some negative posts about it, so we are indeed hearing you and thinking about what to change there. One of our cardinal rules is zero alcohol (as in not one sip of beer) if you are working on anything for a customer. However, because we are 24x7, there is always a subset of the team who need to have Cokes instead of beer. I honestly didn’t realize this was such a big issue, so thanks for raising it.
Management nowhere to be found? Not sure what you mean there. We did have a senior person who was going through an adoption process, and he needed to be at home quite a bit during that time, and yes, we made a lot of accommodations to make it work for him. However, that’s not at all typical for us. I am certainly out of the office frequently for client meetings, board meetings, prospect meetings, etc., but the vast majority of my days I am right there in the Command Center marveling at the amount of work getting done and the people who are doing it. And the other managers are right there in the room in the middle of it all.
80 hours a week? Again, I’m sorry you felt this way, but it just is not true. As a management team we do monitor hours worked per week across the firm. In fact, I have a line in my weekly report that can go “red.” It does not go red if people haven’t entered their time; it goes red when people work more than 50 hours a week. That’s a warning sign to me. In fact, this afternoon I had a conversation with our network engineering team, as they have been going over that this week. (A crazy number of network changes all at once.) It was me, not them, who said we need to figure out how to build in some time off next week, but in a planned rotation. They told me they were fine and not to worry about it. They said, “It’s not like this most of the time.” I actually went back and checked my records before posting this, and the norm is not 40 – you are right about that – but it is generally about 50 hours a week. If that feels like 80 to you, then this is definitely not the right place.
You are right that we let people go when they don’t “fit in.” Our evaluation forms that we fill out quarterly only have 4 boxes on them – our 4 core values. That’s it. And you’re right that when people consistently miss the mark on those 4 core values, they don’t stay at YJT. We do not just fire people without warning, though, and we don't fire someone for simply making a mistake. In fact, the opposite is true! The baseball player who usually holds the home run record for a season often holds the record for the highest number of strike-outs, too. It’s about an employee’s day to day attitudes and approach to what they do and say. We have instituted a PIP program (Performance Improvement Plan). We lay out the specifics of what is missing from that person’s chronic (never 1-time) actions to fall short in one or several of the core values. We have a meeting about it, and both the supervisor and the employee sign the form. Then we give it some agreed-upon time and meet again. There have been shining examples where someone was able to recognize the issue and get it fixed and move on to subsequent promotions. There have also been examples where the person did not fix it and was let go. I am dead serious about not having people on the team who aren’t a fit for who we are and what we’re delivering every day and night and what we’re building month by month, and I know I’ve let people go who have been readily hired in other companies. I view it as an obligation to the rest of my incredible staff to not have people working side by side with them who are not aligned with our standards.
I wish you well in your new job and in all that lies ahead for you, and again, I’m sorry it was such a negative experience with us.
Linda
