1. Toxic culture
2. Senior leadership chooses ignorance
3. Burnout
4. Bullying
5. Lack of diversity
6. Lack of empathy
7. Inefficient tools
8. Lack of transparency
9. Non-existent work/life balance
& so many more...
Sexism, nepotism, cronyism... Just a few of the cultural experiences you're likely to encounter right now working in Frontline Support at any level--especially if you're a female and/or minority that refuses to play a part in perseverating the toxic culture that's been cultivated there. While bullying behavior may have been instituted by previous leadership, remnants still remain and new leadership appears to be unbothered by the concept of investing any genuine time, attention or resources into making improvements for a team of talented individuals struggling to get through each day--concerns that fell on deaf ears when brought to senior leadership's attention. Simply delegating everything and assigning someone else's name to actionable items is NOT enough. Roll up your sleeves, put down your Starbucks and spend some time with the individuals (FRONTLINE) who care enough about the platform and our customers to sacrifice their well-beings to admirably represent Smartsheet despite unhealthy department-wide conditions.
The reality is, teams are self-destructing, managers are beyond frustrated with the lack of autonomy to make healthy choices for their direct reports, support specialists are crying at their desks at home and having panic attacks due to an unhealthy level of pressure/workload, and a growing number of people (from specialists through middle management) are taking an increased number of mental health days simply to get by. This is not a result of the pandemic, though one would hope companies would show greater care in a time like this, it is a direct result of the culture within Smartsheet Support. The department is broken and a wave of attrition has already begun due to burnout (ironic that the decision was recently made to end weekly emails detailing entrances and exits). It will continue to increase unless senior leadership starts valuing individuals on the frontline as much as they do sharing "good news stories" in QBRs, All Hands and on LinkedIn.
While leadership may spin tales that those of us that have left were simply "unhappy", they're right! The truth is we were incredibly unhappy with and unwilling to continue to be a part of the problem since we were not allowed to be a part of a solution.
I'm not referencing complicated issues, I'm talking about things like:
1. Being understaffed (unchanged staff numbers vs. increased customer volume = an imbalance in work per head) despite verbally being told otherwise
2. Schedules historically being poorly aligned to meet service levels (resulting in those working prime business hours being stuck on intense back-to-back calls and working overtime every day to wrap)
3. Literally no emphasis or expenditure on building department morale
4. A constantly growing backlog for which all frontline is being held accountable (check FCR and the volume of reply/received by individual and the story of origin is obvious)
5. A complete lack of trust that managers (despite verifiable/quantifiable proof otherwise and formal training) can situationally manage their teams
7. Bullying behavior by other cross-functional leaders towards Support
8. Workload demands dictated without any feedback from teams, which reflect an obvious lack of understanding of what frontline actually does (for example: 25+ hrs of Prodesk is too much)
9. Zero skip-levels between new leadership and existing management close to frontline
10. A shockingly uncouth handling by new leadership of every difficult situation that has surfaced over the last 2.5 months
11. Lack of diversity and zero sensitivity around diversity (the former head of DEI quit in less than a year)
12. Complete lack of work/life balance (if you don't expect people to work on the weekends, don't ping them and ask them to deliver things over the weekend)
13. Total disregard for the fact that we are a GLOBAL team and not everyone lives in PST (regularly scheduling meetings hours after local business hours and telling management they should all function on PST is ridiculous and not in line with other comparable global businesses)
14. Raising issues puts a major target on your back (many of us experienced this directly)
In a department where honesty is met with aggression, kowtowing to outrageous demands (even at the sacrifice of others) is rewarded, and a complete lack of transparency prevails; no healthy, empathic person can possibly last for long--especially in leadership--since those of us who were willing to be honest quickly earned reputations.
