Underpaid and overworked - Consultant Obsidian Digital Employee Review

Hi former employee While we would prefer not to make this a public thing for everyone to read, we feel obliged to call out both the misunderstandings and deliberate wrongful accusations on your part. For this reason, we would like to note that some of the following statements may appear harsh, but we do not want to let this stand here unopposed and we are willing to lay the facts on the table. Knowing who you are, we are not surprised to see this review. Despite our collaboration lasting only a year, you took more HR-resources than anyone in our six year history and made at least one employee quit our organization. While we tried to make it work and kept investing resources, we believe you finding somewhere else to work was for the best. This 'review' only confirmed this belief. We hope that you find more success in your next employment at a new agency. For everyone else reading, here is a short breakdown of the 11 accusations that we found in this ‘review’: -- "Obsidian only hires newly graduated people and have a bad reputation" We are proud of training the CMOs of tomorrow. As one of relatively few agencies, we would like to hire people without experience and train them ourselves. This included you in the beginning.. We do also hire senior personnel as well, but we prefer to promote people inside the organization as one of the benefits of working with Obsidian. If our reputation is poor, it is only amongst people you talk with. Growing with inbound marketing only and receiving +1000 yearly applications across our offices are proof of the opposite. -- "The training is inadequate" As an inbound marketing-agency with no contractual obligations for our clients to stay with us, they only do so if we deliver a great product. We can only deliver a great product with great training. Our growth from the last six years in itself disproves this accusation. However, as the saying goes, we can only get the horse to the water. We can not make it drink. If people do not want to learn, the best training in the world can’t change this. -- "The environment is hostile" We actually believe that you felt this. This 'review' is a great example of the hostile attitude you had towards our agency and your co-workers. We’ve never had a person with this many controversies with people from all departments. Fortunately, this does not reflect the experience of the average employee. -- "A lot of work is expected" Yes. With Obsidian, we wanted to create the digital marketing-equivalent of working with McKinsey, Kromann Reumert or Deloitte. This means setting a high standard with our product. We are 100 % transparent in all of our recruiting material and in possible talks with possible hires that Obsidian is for you only if you are looking for a career and not merely ‘some job’. While more than average work is to be expected for the first year, after being promoted to the next level, it is possible to work with Obsidian at a regular working hour-tempo - or continue in a higher gear with more responsibilities and a higher salary. This depends on personal preference. An example of this is that the majority of our senior personnel have a familiy at home and for that reason works regular hours. -- "Poor food" We offer free breakfast, lunch and dinner for all employees. Lunch is served in the canteen of Parken with three tables of hot and cold food every day. The food is made in a kitchen with several dedicated chefs. Every single night, we order out from different restaurants with delivery for those who stay for dinner. If this is not good enough, you are free to not participate. -- "Facetime means more than real work" We evaluate based on merit. Merit comes from delivering great results for your clients, delivering on time and receiving high ‘quarterlies’ from your colleagues above you. We understand your disappointment of not getting a promotion, but rest assured it was not a lack of facetime. -- "Working at the office is required and is a bad thing" We are open about the fact that we would like people to work at the office. We are able to provide better training in person and we believe that the culture - our most valuable asset - is best carried out in person. -- "Gender equality" While 1 out of 3 managing directors and our CFO is female, we would greatly like to see even more female leadership and we encourage anyone (male or female) with the right qualifications to apply with Obsidian. -- "Pension" We offer a voluntary pension scheme for anyone who wants to participate. -- "Christmas gifts" This is a strange item on the list, but we are sorry that you were not contempt with last year's Christmas (or Easter) presents.