A shining example of a workplace continuing to drive the Great Resignation - Product Manager Mention Me Employee Review

An insidiously toxic workplace. Unfortunately, it took me a while to understand what I was witnessing and experiencing myself. A few key themes: 1. Lack of consideration, courtesy and dignity for colleagues. I witnessed multiple cases of verbal and written abuse towards people, completely dismissed by most if not all leadership, where no one was held accountable for treating others poorly. People were gaslit into believing their experience was not that bad, or that the person did not intend to upset them (i.e. a huge focus on motivations instead of addressing the damaging behaviour). 2. Noninclusive -All male leadership team (except for one women) some of whom have worked together for 6 years or more in previous businesses which is evident in the lack of diversity of thought. - Very few people of colour - and evidence of white privilege (many conversations where after explaining how someone else may perceive it, people would remark that if they didn't see or understand it then did it really happen that way?). 3. A culture of gaslighting and minimising peoples' experiences in the workplace. This looked like: blank stares in meetings when I or others raised concerns, or being told it would all be fine/ it's just a job, don't stress/it's not that bad. 4. A culture of overworking and burnout, while also no opportunities to upskill and progress in the business. It was hard to understand at first because the general tone is that mental health mattered and that we needed to raise issues when there were problems. However, when we did explain lack of time, resource and support this was consistently underplayed and ignored often by members of the management and leadership team that were not in the day to day. 5. Lack of alignment amongst and between senior leadership and middle management which was made worse because of no one wanted to talk about or address it. Difficult conversations were not modelled by leadership. My main conclusions are that Mention Me: - Is more concerned with preserving it's reputation and many people within the business do all they can to desperately control the narrative that all is well. - Spends a lot of time talking about mental health, but never accepting that workplace culture is a big factor in people's mental health issues. After years of me and others pointing this out, I believe they cannot or do not want to see this. - Lacks the psychosocial skills to understand the toxic working environment has on people. I saw little evidence of these skills in the way we were led and in the tone deaf responses when people raised issues. There was little to no psychological safety.