Confusion, Stress, Boredom, and Harassment
Pros
-Location: MicroVentures has a gorgeous new office in the Domain, close to shops and food, with floor-to-ceiling windows and an open office floorplan. -Office perks: Employees have free snacks and beverages (including beer, though that is limited). Lunch is catered once a week.
Cons
-Leadership: Management holds all the power, making decisions without collaborating or informing employees. After employees are told what to do, management expects immediate acceptance and execution, with no questions asked. If employees don't follow orders or complete tasks incorrectly due to lack of information, management will punish them by chewing them out, threatening their job, or publicly humiliating them. Somehow, management seems to require employees to both be "proactive" without "overstepping boundaries"...without knowing what those boundaries are. Similarly, management has difficulty getting things done on a day-to-day basis but will not giving up ownership or consider delegating tasks to others - tasks just get stuck in limbo for days or weeks. -Lack of professional growth: There is little to no training for new employees. Therefore, new employees are either bored or overwhelmed. On the other hand, skilled/tenured employees cannot contribute new ideas due to leadership's restrictive management style, so their talents are left unused. -Micromanagement: To the extreme. Employees are watched constantly - when they arrive in the morning, when they leave for lunch or any other breaks, how much time their "wasting" throughout the day...and if you make mistakes, your every move is watched to make sure you don't make even a simple mistake in the future. -Office culture: Stereotypical "bro" culture that goes completely against the "Me Too" movement. Sexist and discriminatory language is frequently heard in the office. Some employees seem to have more "perks" than others (e.g. frequent work-from-home days no one else is entitled to). Management is happy to purchase expensive gadgets for the office but runs into difficulty supplying employees with the software needed to do their jobs. Many employees are expected to receive their financial licenses, and MicroVentures will purchase the study materials but there is no support offered prior to the test. Employees are often forced to work very long hours without overtime - NO work-life balance. And management frequently tries to remove holidays from the calendar ever year to get more work out of employees. -Turnover: There is a huge employee turnover problem, to the point where there is an entirely new staff every two years. Therefore, no long-term initiatives can really be implemented or even developed b/c there is such a drastic change month to month.
