Steer clear, unless you enjoy gambling with your career as currency
Pros
-1 or 2 brands (out of over 50) that are proven winners and continue to show upward trends (Cupcake continues to be the shining star here. As long as it continues to grow, everything else wrong with this organization with persist) -solid network of distributors -strong off-premise presence -pay is commensurate with position (although not with experience, see cons section) -a few very solid employees who show insight, edge, compassion, skill and the ability to listen -
Cons
-management has very little insight into how to motivate and treat employees -considering TWG presents themselves as being the 3rd largest winery in the world, they have made very little investment into need-based resources -because they're growing beyond their minimal infrastructure, they have undergone AT LEAST 1 organizational restructuring every year for the past several years. These are not strategic expansions in sales force, but rather eliminating employees that don't fit their ancient mold and replacing with a new batch of unsuspecting personnel. This has created a cyclical effect with many new employees being encouraged to share their ideas only to find themselves shifted around and eventually asked to leave b/c of those new ideas. -they pride themselves on having a "quick to fail" philosophy with brands, meaning that they basically throw a bunch of substandard brands into the marketplace with the knowledge that 90% of them won't last. Unfortunately, this means that the sales teams are investing several months focused against brands that will suddenly be dropped......this kills morale and trust (especially the trust between TWG and customers/retailers/distributors) -employee owned, although there are only a handful of employee owners. Identities are kept top secret....which is understandable. What doesn't make sense is selling prospective employees on the potential to one day become an employee/owner without laying out a clear path to achieving. -inconsistent compensation/promotion system. Some brand new employees with minimal industry experience promoted to new positions after 6 months. Often times, these industry "newbies" were promoted to positions where their counterparts had 5-10 years more experience under their belt....kills morale. -zero training and development. Now, TWG will say that they hire people that don't need to be babysat.....this is not what I'm referring to. Regardless of who a company hires, they should be focusing some amount of energies towards managing their employees for success and teaching them the selling points of their products. Feedback to employees is a critical part of development and getting them ready for bigger roles. This does not exist at TWG outside of an annual performance review, which is typically a very awkward conversation between manager and employee discussing strengths and opportunities for the first time in 12 months -reward system seems to change without explanation. Suddenly and without explanation after a few years, we were informed that our sales bonuses were being done away with. They did bump our annual salary, but without a bonus, there were no clearly defined KPIs (key performance indicators or goals) to focus on. -no standardized processes. People in different states were doing things very differently. Even worse, no "best practices" being shared.