Pros
If you haven't noticed, many if not most of the positive reviews have been written by the same person/people direct from company headquarters. If that by itself doesn't raise several red flags, I don't know what else to tell you. The very few things that make this job tolerable aren't necessarily worth it. *Pay - the pay rate is competitive and probably the best part of the job. It's the only reason I stuck around as long as I did. Although I left my position at $22/hr, it's important to note I started off at $18/hr and didn't see a raise until I saw the same position advertised online for $20/hr once recruiting new hires became an issue. Weeks went by before I realized this (never brought up by management), and once I presented the issue at hand, management backtracked and tried to convince me a review was necessary before I could be considered for a raise. It came at a time when management was being turned over and the market was on the verge of collapsing, so my raise went from $18/hr to $22 because I was being promoted to "trainer" (a desperate attempt to keep the very last of the little market team employees). *Benefits - Great benefits offered. Unfortunately for me, a lack of a real HR team and an awful manager kept me from knowing what they were or how to enroll and use them before I left. *Interesting concept!!- Absurdly poor execution.
Cons
There really is so much to say about how unexpectedly awful and exhausting my experience with Hello Alfred was. From the mortifying experience of sexual harassment I had brought onto me by the former city manager that was totally unfit for the position, to the 8 straight months of leaderless, directionless chaos that was working in the Hello Alfred SF market. The job itself, lunch-less days of tedious, manual labor guised as a "trusty home management service", is a mess of being a cross between an over-glorified house keeper and a personal shopper. Your days are riddled with a handful of absurd requests: from entitled, knit-picky customers who will complain anyway, anyhow. Sometimes those complaints are valid, most of the time they are not- either way, you as an ACM will always be on the receiving end. Management has no clue what they're doing in any market, it seems. They ignore ACM cries for proper and effective leadership in exchange for the monetary pursuit of market expansion and momentary satisfaction of client approval. They love blaming all problems and concerns on previous employees/management with no real intent on spending the time and energy on reflecting and finding resolution to those said issues. The company heralds themselves as one rooted in integrity, empathy, and most importantly, honesty- but I've never had such a traumatizing experience that goes against all mentioned core values at any employer the way I have with Hello Alfred. I spent almost an entire year straight enduring the most uncomfortable, backwards, directionless, shady lack of leadership with this company. It's difficult not to feel jaded or a little cynical, so I try to focus on at least understanding that this awful experience has taught me about my worth and what I *don't* ever want in an employer. A previous review mentioned working for Hello Alfred as employee purgatory - nothing ever happens. You just endure the tumultuous, two-faced nature of this company for what it is until you've vocalized your concerns- then you're either bullied out or fired at first chance. TL;DR - sexual harassment, over-exhaustive labor with no lunches, unbelievably poor leadership from city markets to HQ, awful customer/employee support services, no real HR, and slimy, spineless "leaders" and "managers." Just take a look at how vague and forced almost every positive review is compared to the negative ones, which clearly come from real people with real experiences.