There is a real sink or swim mentality here, wasn't sure I would make it the first 6 months or so. Even with 20 years of sales and customer service experience, there was a severe lack of training offered. I was kept afloat by my team members in the district, luckily I'm a pretty quick study. As others have mentioned, communication is nonexistant - whether it's from the top down or just between departments. This always leads to animosity that is unnecessary. I agree that employees are often treated like children, if you thought enough of us to hire, perhaps you should allow us some empowerment and trust in our integrity, micro-management never works and just brings out the worst in people.
This company likes to roll out multiple initiatives at one time - this is common at large organizations with an extensive senior leadership staff - everyone has they're pet project that they expect to advance themselves with. The problem is the field personnel and other minions can't possibly keep up with it all and soon the initiative is dropped due to lack of interest, whether at the corporate or local level. I was told when I was hired by employees from ALL areas of the company that our mantra was: "the only thing that stays the same is change." That's fine, I can roll with the flow, but truly it can become laughable after a point.
As previously reported there is a great deal of nepotism/favoritism at this company, it is very much an old boy network mentality. As I have no wish to advance here, I suppose this poses no real problem for me.
My biggest complaints are two-fold:
1 - There is a real problem here - it's called paranoia, this organization has a serious culture of fear. Whether your a driver, a customer service/call center rep, corporate employee or in sales, your always reminded that those who don't meet their goals will not retain their employment. I'm not against this normally, I believe everyone should work hard and give 100% every day, but please don't hold it over our heads like a sword that we can be replaced. We know we can, especially in our current economy.
2 - Our customers should be treated with respect. This means offering competitive pricing within the market, exceptional customer service and common courtesy. This does not mean nickel and dime-ing them with ridiculous extra fees and surcharges and expecting your sales team to try and sell the value of them, stop trying to show "growth" to wall street at the expense of your customer. Or by a wage freeze on your overworked staff - like that 2% increase is going to break me anyway. Please. Enough said.
