Pros
The designers and writers at High Five have been a pleasure to work with. The talent these people possess are by far some of the most creative and inspiring individuals I have ever worked with. They’ve made my days easier and a lot brighter. I’ve learned a lot from them in many ways and they are the only reason my review has any stars. Without them High Five would cease to exist; without them they wouldn’t have the extensive clientele that they do to this day.
Cons
Phew. Where does one start with the negatives? First and foremost, after witnessing that so many others feel the same as I do in regard to management and the partners at High Five, it is assuring but at the same time, it’s also extremely depressing and unsettling. This is not my first job, but it is my first “creative” job and I feel like off the bat, H5 takes advantage of those that they feel have less marketing experience than others. And they do this by paying them a lot less than they pay others (some even right out of college), and bleed them dry of their creativity. I was asked how much I made at my last job and they based my pay off that—not my talent. And when they started to take notice of my diligence, tenacity, and how well I did my job, they gave me new opportunities. Yet I was never met with any pay raises, just more work and told that I was a “rockstar.” When people wanted to unionize, that’s when everyone started to notice—including the partners—that many are unhappy here for a lot of the same reasons. We were met with the partners attempting to scramble and deal with over half of the office wanting change—good pay, flexibility, and to have a working bathroom and AC/heater, because for awhile, we were told we had to work from the office or clock out to use the restroom at a gas station or store nearby. Just to be treated as humans and not be hit with OSHA violation, one after the other. This, in turn, was met with a communication committee that was a disaster to say the least. And a lot of talk of the word “propaganda” for those who spoke out against the questionable practices the partners inflected on its employees. The first communication committee was met with extreme hostility, cursing, condescension, and humiliation from one of the partners that was quick to deny every single request the committee brought to the table. Some left the 3 1/2 hour meeting in tears, angry, and shaken up. The whole office was visibly upset after this meeting and they chose to do nothing about it, other than have a redo meeting with a different partner. After that day, nothing was really the same. People became scared to voice their concerns out of fear that they will get fired for saying anything the partners viewed as “negative.” Employees slowly started to realize what the partners really think about their employees and rushed to Crumbl cookies to buy us all back. But it didn’t work. Over the last 4 months, the company has lost over 20% of its employees. Most of them being forced to leave due to “propaganda,” low pay, or simply wanting to get out of a toxic environment. Instead of them addressing these exits as a concern for certain departments, they would rather ignore the reasons and deflect responsibility. They did this by forcing those few left behind to take on all of the work, including making lower level employees find potential hires and ignoring the fact they are working 2-3 peoples’ jobs, thus creating extreme burn out.