Instrument reviews

3.1

59% would recommend to a friend

(79 total reviews)
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Laurel Burton

13% approve of CEO

17% positive business outlook

Instrument has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 79 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Instrument employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

79 reviews
2.0
Jan 28, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great clients and impactful work at times

Cons

very clique-y, if you're not part of the OG's or the cool design club you don't get any attention or opportunities

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Instrument Response
5y
Thank you for taking the time to write a review on your experience working with us. We agree with you that there is work to be done internally to ensure all employees are given the same level of attention, mentorship, and sponsorship in order to provide a space for opportunity here. We hope that our efforts are felt this year: in our embedding of the new Career Progression Framework (in reviews and in our conversations), our formalizing of mentorship assignments, and our deepening of what "Career Management" means internally for each employee. Thank you again for this feedback, and please feel free to reach out to your Discipline Lead or People Operations if you feel comfortable expressing any of this internally.
2.0
Jan 21, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some of the most talented designers and strategists out there. The output was always super high quality.

Cons

Concerning behavior from leadership, specifically around transparency, hesitation to do the right thing in the face of social justice. Lack of mentorship and transparency from managers. Unclear job responsibilities. A fair amount of favoritism and cliques. Not an inclusive culture, depending on the team. High POC turnover.

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Instrument Response
5y
Thank you for taking the time to write this review, and for the transparency of your experience with us. We are hopeful that our progress is being felt by current employees through our Career Progression Framework (for job clarity and consistency in expectations), committed transparency reports, and ongoing efforts to identify and dismantle the clique behaviors. We also appreciate your notation of the team differentiators, as this is an area of focus for us this year. While we want our independent teams to have autonomy, we also agree that inclusivity and consistency in how safe one feels, should not vary depending on the team. Thank you again, for your time with us and for sharing your experience.
1.0
Nov 8, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1. Truly talented and creative coworkers

Cons

1. Executive leadership is all talk and no action. Example: they constantly told people to ask for whatever time off they needed, but HR pushed back hard on managers who tried to support their people this way. 2. People often work nights or weekends to push through and get projects done, in part because resourcing is so chaotic and poorly planned. 3. They recently fired two of the strongest advocates for DEI within the company, one of who was a 10-year employee in non-executive leadership. 4. Execs constantly center their feelings when talking about their commitments to DEI and anti-racism, and make excuses about not wanting to give into urgency when they miss their own deadlines. Too many examples to list, including an exec who talked about their “BIPOC friends” to show how great they were doing at anti-racism work. 5. There’s no real way to talk with execs except through a form where you can submit questions, and those often get a response along the lines of “per our last email” with no actual info. 6. The company is more concerned with external image than how people internally are actually feeling and whether they’re supported. Example: they originally took down their Black Lives Matter splash page 3 days after putting it up, but some employees saw and objected to how shallow and self-serving that timing felt, so it went back up. 7. Many people, especially in the dev discipline, took pay cuts to work here because salaries are lower than industry standard. Are there cool projects? Yes. Are there truly great people to collaborate with? Yes. (Are we in a pandemic and a job here is better than no job? Yes.) That might be enough for you if you can keep your head down and ignore how executive leadership fails to follow through on any real change, and if you can be super strict about work/life balance even when you see your teammates working extra hours - otherwise, this place isn’t worth it.

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Instrument Response
5y
Thank you for this feedback, and the experiences you shared. It is critical for us to do everything we can to ensure employees have what they need, in their personal and professional lives, including time off. If you feel comfortable, please reach out to People Ops as we have no known incidences of discouraging time off if an employee needed it, and always work to find the best way to support leave. 2020 has definitely put internal communication to the test. We are actively working to evolve communication and provide safe spaces and opportunities for many voices to be heard — and have undoubtedly had some successes and some failures. We continue to encourage employees to reach out directly to any member of Executive Leadership to have a conversation. Again, we really appreciate your open and candid feedback as it is the only way for us to reflect, action and pivot.
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Glassdoor has 97 Instrument reviews submitted anonymously by Instrument employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Instrument is right for you.