Low pay, frustrating management, but some perks and above average freedom. - Specialist CLEAResult Employee Review

PAY: The way CLEAResult handles pay is frustrating for several reasons. Here’s my experience: Each job family has about 5 levels. For example: assistant, coordinator, specialist, associate, senior. I rose to level three pretty quickly. My pay started at around $15 an hour, and I had to fight tooth and nail to get to about $20 an hour, or $40,000 a year, at level 3. I’m a mid level employee, but I don’t make enough to be anywhere near comfortable in Portland. I’ve been low-balled aggressively at every stage of my journey at this company. They seem to want to promote me constantly, but they raise my pay the minimum amount they can every time. I have coworkers at the same level as me who make only a little bit more, even though they are more experienced and have been with the company for several years. Yet another coworker, also at the same level gets paid several thousand dollars more and received a merit increase several percentages above average. But we all got the same ratings on our performance reviews. Pay is not based on seniority, merit, or the cost of living. I think it's just based on how big your department’s budget is. And it helps if you’re a man. The stories of blatant gender pay disparity here are disheartening. Online tools consistently rank my worth at $10k higher than what I make, but CLEAResult insists they are paying the market rate for my specific job in this specific industry. Well, that’s all well and good, but 1) my skills are transferable to other industries, and 2) lots of people take their skills and knowledge gained at CLEAResult to get a higher paying job in the same industry. If you try to bring up concerns about pay, you get stonewalled by your completely ineffective and ill-informed (or sometimes downright sneaky) middle manager – more on those folks in a minute. The company conducts employee satisfaction surveys, but even when compensation is discovered to be a top concern (and it always is), they redirect the conversation onto other things. I’ve heard so many senior management folks and HR people at CLEAResult say, “it’s never really about pay,” or “it’s not just about pay,” or, “when people say it’s pay, it’s usually something else.” First of all, this is only true if you make a baseline living wage. At CLEAResult, in Portland, you don’t, unless you’re senior management or in a technical job (although I don’t think they pay their engineers that well either). Second, it’s disconcerting how many times the company has been directly told by its employees that compensation is unsatisfactory – even in surveys they’ve paid for! Only for them to somehow not hear that message and say, “it’s really about something else.” Cognitive dissonance, much? Benefits: great health benefits and good 401k. Vacation time is another story. Everyone starts with 2 weeks vacation, and 2 weeks sick, and it takes 3 years to up vacation to 2.5 weeks (sick stays constant). But if there’s a merger, they’ve been known to restart the clock for the acquired employees. Sick time and vacation are not interchangeable. Some managers don’t care, others do and will remind you not to “abuse” your sick time. Even at the scrappy nonprofits I worked for, 3 weeks vacation was standard for salaried employees, so 2 seems stingy. Management Middle management: they’re everywhere. Everyone has (at least) one. The company attempts to indoctrinate them to their inneffecitve, pointless management philosophy. Some examples: managers have one on one meetings with employees. This is supposed to be an employee-directed meeting to bring up concerns, challenges, etc. There are two problems with this. 1) some managers insist on a specific length and frequency of meetings even though they’re supposed to be employee directed. 2) middle managers have no power, so they can’t do anything about your concerns. It’s just a listening session meant to placate you. Another example of the company’s management philosophy? Making teams go through trainings where you learn about each other’s personality types and how best to work with each one. This wouldn’t be so bad if they *also* addressed employees’ documented concerns about pay, retention, etc. But they don’t. So it seems like a dumb use of resources. HR staff carry out these trainings. If you ever have a real concern for HR though – good luck, because they’re useless at dealing with actually important things. They WILL help your boss lowball you though! Moreover, middle managers are completely ignorant of basic management things. Here are some basic management things my managers didn’t know: State overtime laws Federal exempt and nonexempt classifications (i.e., who the company must pay overtime to) Basic company policies (although they did sometimes get briefed on these and would then regurgitate the PowerPoint slides for their team.) I don’t get why the company spends resources training managers on “how to be a manager” (read: how to listen without actually doing anything) but doesn’t train them on basic aspects of employment law, in order to avoid lawsuits. It makes no sense. If you try to bring up real issues of compensation, retention, morale, etc. to your manager, they can’t or won’t help. Yet, the company spends a lot of time talking about “culture.” They even have a “culture committee” that they’ve enlisted to help soft-pedal their agenda. These committee members volunteer their time to do things like plan potlucks, get small perks (like a soda stream) for the office, and plan events. Generally, things that cost the company little or no money, and are completely planned by their employees, but that they hold up as examples of them addressing employees’ concerns and making the office a better place to work. In short, they spend a lot of energy coming up with fake solutions to non-problems, but turn a blind eye to repeated negative feedback on concrete issues of employee compensation and satisfaction. Hey, I like free Italian sodas as much as the next guy, but it’s cold comfort when you can’t meet your expenses on your crummy salary. Of course, there are a few good managers who really try to do right by their teams. They are powerless, but at least they try. I feel bad for them. They're overworked and underpaid too. It's kind of sad to watch. Oh and the “culture code” is one of the worst bits of meaningless corporate speak I’ve ever come across. "Our hands, our hearts, our head"...is this yoga? Tinder? I just don't even know. Job security and growth: In my experience, there’s no way to know if your job is secure. You may get lucky with a good manager or director-level insight into how valuable the company thinks your team is, or you may find out half your team is laid off at the end of the year with little to no warning because the company didn’t meet its revenue targets. There are some natural opportunities for learning and growth if you come into the company with no background in the industry, as I did. It’s an interesting field and I enjoyed learning the ropes – until I hit a wall, early on, and repeated requests for additional training were ignored. You’re on your own when it comes to seeking out additional training and growth opportunities. And if you decide the way to get those opportunities (or simply to move up in the company and make something closer to a living wage), is to apply for other internal openings, be prepared for backlash from possessive managers. Exemplary job performance, or going above and beyond, brings no special reward. I was told point blank that above and beyond should simply be considered normal! But, lackluster job performance can easily go unnoticed too, which can be nice when you’re having an off day (or year), but not so great when you’re helping pick up someone’s slack. If you’re in a QC role with very concrete measurements – like they tally your error rate or something – you might get put on probation if you’re not meeting them. Put on probation – not supported so that you can fix the problem. There’s no real consistency though. So evaluations seem pointless, especially when the most you can hope for is a 3% raise over your measly salary . And that’s in a good year. There are of course, mythical bonuses – rare as unicorns and only paid out when the company, your region, and your team exceed certain targets – but again, your base pay is probably too low for a bonus to be much more than a drop in the bucket, since it’s a percentage of your salary. Hourly employees don’t qualify for bonuses, but they can usually pick up overtime, which is awesome. But the company will push you into a salaried role as quickly as possible. Senior management, company leadership and direction Who knows, really? There’s always another merger or acquisition around the corner. The company wants to make its investors money, which means driving down overhead and costs any way the pointy headed leaders can devise. And I get that – but there never seems to be a really solid plan behind it. The approach is constantly changing, which makes you feel like your job could also change, or be eliminated, at any moment. The upside is, all this confusion means there’s a lack of oversight. So if you want to work from home all the time, basically make your own schedule, or heck, just be on Facebook all day and get all your work done in the last hour, it’s likely no one will care. Some teams seem woefully overworked while others twiddle their thumbs (but I think overwork is definitely the norm).