Turnover, Toxicity, and Unpaid Overtime - Anonymous employee iCode (TX) Employee Review

I know it’s easy to write off reviews like this as being petty or just a disgruntled employee venting but I’ve been sitting on this for a couple months now to ensure my review is accurate. I assure you the information below is true. I have actually removed some of the worse things like numerous HR and SH claims I know about to protect those involved. The CEO will likely read this and blame current or former staff for the bad culture but won’t look inward at his own actions that have led the environment to deteriorate over time. I hope one day he learns from this. There is no culture at iCode. There is only the CEO and what he deems to be important. Anything else is tossed to the side. Unfortunately that includes staff being concerned about severe weather, ice on the roads, and in one instance a fire in the attic. Staff was actually made to go back into the building the electrical fire occured before the fire-causing malfunction had been fixed. Leadership has no regard for the wellbeing or mental health of their staff. They often encourage employees to work extra hours and weekends without additional pay. While the CEO won’t directly order it, he will text and call employees at all hours as late as 1am. On several occasions he even chastised employees for taking lunch breaks or going to the bathroom too often. The CEO will spend 30+ minutes in staff meetings talking about culture and how iCode “isn’t an adult daycare” but then proceeds to micro-manage all of his employees. He surrounds himself with “yes-men” and fires anyone who provides actual opinions or insight contrary to his own ideas. Ideas that he comes up with overnight and enforces on a whim without any actual research. He has invested millions of dollars on ideas that were doomed to fail and the people who informed him of their concerns have since been let go. Franchisees are often upset by the constant changing of directions, lack of consistent guidance, and ridiculous amounts of turnover. It’s just a shame more than anything. This company used to be a good place for kids STEM education and professional development. Now it’s just like every other soulless corporation. The biggest bummer is it could’ve been avoided if the CEO would’ve just taken the time to listen to his employees.