Technology: The fact that the I.T. endorsed browser at SAGE is Internet Explorer 9 should say it all. I realize that "technical difficulties" are an almost universal complaint at any place of work, but at SAGE the problems faced by employees go beyond petty annoyances. At least half my job was spent troubleshooting shoddy 15-year-old systems desperately in need of updates or overhauls and finding roundabout ways to solve problems. Oftentimes cost was mentioned as an obstacle to making improvements, but that leads me to wonder: Will SAGE just never update systems that only work on IE? What happens when IE becomes defunct? If SAGE seriously invests in catapulting itself into the 21st century, I believe employees will be happier and do better/faster work (note that the latter seems to be the real priority).
- Willingness to make necessary changes/improvements: As I'm sure you can tell from my above comments about technology, SAGE is reluctant to alter its conservative approach to almost all aspects of business. I can only speak to what I saw in my department and by no means have an accurate perspective on all goings-on at SAGE, but what I did see was pretty abysmal. As an example, there were talks of outsourcing the usage of difficult-to-use, IE only, 15 year old systems to employees in India rather than update them.
- Morale/Turnover: There was an almost permanent sense of panic at SAGE while I worked there. In my year at SAGE, about a dozen people in my 40-person department quit. Frustration with systems, feelings of powerlessness to change personal situations, and general fatigue no doubt impacted these decisions. These staffing changes hit lower-level employees the hardest and forced them to pick up the slack and double their workload to keep the department afloat.
- Mandatory fun: To "boost morale," upper management would implement after-work happy hours and "fun days" when what employees truly wanted was to feel empowered and heard. Although these gestures of goodwill were sincere attempts to fix problems, they were the results of ignorance to employees' true reasons for dissatisfaction. Turning the monthly half-hour birthday break where employees could chat and eat goodies into an hour and a half long meeting about financials is not the way to prevent employees from quitting.
- Management: Most people in higher-level positions in my department were kind, genuinely caring people. That being said, I believe the outdated corporate structure of SAGE lends itself to an environment in which those at the top have no idea what those beneath them do. This ignorance led lower-level employees (assistants) to face impossible deadlines, take on responsibilities that had company-wide implications, and require overtime to finish all tasks. Because of poor planning and training, certain duties and systems were relegated to one lower-level employee, leaving everyone lost when that person inevitably quit.
- "Paying your dues:" The "pay your dues" philosophy at SAGE allows lower-level employees to be taken advantage of and enables employees who have been there a longer time to avoid retribution for unfair and even abusive behavior. HR seems reluctant to take complaints seriously and reacts to problematic manager behavior with statements like: "Well we don't know their background or why they would behave that way, so there's not much we can do." This antiquated mode of thinking isn't just incompetent, it's harmful. I have seen multiple coworkers brought to the point of tears as a result of situations like these.
