The CEO - I’m told she was once a nice person however success and money has turned her into a psychopath. The stories I have heard you wouldn’t believe, however they are not my stories to tell... This is my experience with Childs Farm: 2 weeks in I went home in tears after over hearing the CEO tearing apart my third attempt at a weekly report she had demanded all staff contribute to. (Prior to this I had already been told to “dumb myself down”). After hearing her slate me in front of the rest of the office she noticed I was at my desk and decided to rant at me on how to do my job whilst she stood over me demanding results. She asked me why people were too scared to tell her the truth about their results. No hun they’re not lying to you, you just don’t understand the results. (Remember this was 2 weeks in). This paired with multiple people leaving or should I say disappearing as I joined (you wouldn’t find out someone had left until their job was being advertised). Their staff turnover was 52% last year and there’s only 50 employees in total! Then seeing people crying on a daily basis and looking like damaged goods. I wanted to leave for the first 3 months but powered through thanks to the wonderful people in my team.
Everyone in the office was and is terrified of her, the mood instantly changes when she walks in, and she’s in the office almost every day to watch over you like a hawk. She didn’t acknowledge the team to say good morning or how was your weekend, she just stormed into her office, demanded something from her PA (and there’s been a few of them - do not go for this job!) or office manager and would shut her office door.
They say they advocate a stress free environment and work/home life balance but you will get emails, Facebook messages (she’ll find you), calls from the CEO in the evening and on weekends demanding you do something non urgent.
We also had weekly mandatory Monday morning meetings with the whole business and she’d stand there with face of thunder and then call you out on anything she could. Before I started these were every morning and I’m told she’d use them to shout at people. I was told in my induction on my first day that everyone has a “moment” after their first month and to expect it. Meaning you realise what you’ve walked into and want out. I peaked at 2 weeks but I think it depends on your role.
There are no staff from different ethnicities/races, all white. There is one Chinese student who was hired to look after their digital marketing in China but that’s it. And although customers and us employees begged for some diversity on the bottles, it was like pulling teeth. And the responses we were told to give to customers from the CEO had to be severely adapted so not to make the brand come across as racist. Oh and in the brand marketing handbook it states that “only 20% of people in the world are not white” - I’m not sure where she got this statistic???
Now... let’s talk about Coronavirus. So to begin with, they kept staff in the office up until they were basically told they couldn’t work by the government and we soon found out this was because they were planning to let go of 14 members of staff (bear in mind there were under 50 staff members in total). People started being called into a meeting room and then leaving abruptly, not saying a word. When it came to my turn I was told I couldn’t say anything to my team and had to leave immediately. They said they were making redundancies due to coronavirus and that they needed to make cuts to survive it. Bearing in mind this company sells hand wash... and was on track to profit above target that month. I was later told that prior to coronavirus the company was in financial trouble and that although they we’re making big profits now they had to make the cuts because of issues before coronavirus. However they were happy to use it as an excuse at the time. This financial trouble was due to the CEO spending all the businesses money.
A week later I get an email saying that with the governments announcement of furlough they will be putting us all on that. But not topping it up to 100% pay. There was no contact from HR throughout the entire time other than to ask if we wanted to accept another month of furlough pay. Meanwhile they were sending out Easter gifts to the rest of the team and spending money on bee hives to have at the office to make honey (this from a predominately vegan brand). Then to top it all off before any word from the business, new jobs appear on job boards but we haven’t been told if we have jobs still or not. Turns out for most of us, we didn’t and we got “let go” for a second time. I then see my job almost like for like advertised, they’ve added another word in front of it but it’s essentially my job. We were not offered the chance to apply for any of these jobs, not that I would want to work for them now. And today I see an article praising them for releasing a new adult brand even with the challenges of coronavirus. Well now you know, they fired a quarter of their business to do this.
My advice, if you want to keep your mental health in check and your sanity, do not work for this company. Coronavirus saved me from staying there any longer. If they got rid of the CEO I’m sure it would be a great place to work but until then... Good luck.
