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Republic Wireless

Part of DISH

Is this your company?

Full of passion, but systematically, no one listens to anyone here. - Anonymous employee Republic Wireless Employee Review

3.0
Jun 9, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

These are some of the most positive people you'll ever meet. Everyone is passionate about their work. No toxic co workers. Everyone celebrates with you, weeps with you, and fundamentally feels like family.

Cons

Lack of urgency over refining projects. Execution is sloppy here, and when it happens the folks on the front lines suffer the most (Support). No upward mobility. (At least where I am) This is a very top-down tech organization. Not a start-up, stop selling it like it is. This company is 5+ years and over 150 people, it's a real company. I saw someone say there's no titles here. That is absolutely false. People on the bottom are on the bottom, and as hard as they try to change things, and make moves no one listens to them. I've seen some projects that have solid ground, but then get derailed by a project from a higher up prioritization, that has little or no impact because it's baseless and disconnected. Trust some of these folks with their expertise, let them lead projects, and listen to them. That's why you hired them. I see a lot of senior management stepping on peoples toes, them moving projects spending lots of money on 'strategic' things that have no research, and purposely excluding other folks with expertise. That's not cool. What happened to this family to make them so shady?

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Republic Wireless Response
8y
Thank you for these encouraging comments. I'm so glad to hear of your positive experience with your teammates and how they make you feel. "Feeling like family" is a big part of what we aspire our culture to be, so, it's exciting to hear you use those terms to describe your time here. In response to your "Con" comments, I appreciate your candid feedback on these various points. I'd sincerely welcome the opportunity to talk to you about these points, if you'd be willing (please just email or IM me and we will definitely find time to connect soon). If, however, you're not interested/ comfortable with having a dialog, then, here are a few thoughts to address your concerns below. 1.) As to the topic of sloppy execution (and the impact it has on support), I'll start by saying that despite our good intentions and hard work, your observation is definitely true at times and I'm sorry for the suffering it causes on the front lines when that happens. Imperfect as we may be, I can tell you we are constantly striving towards improving our execution and I believe it's fair to say we've come a long way in this regard since our even more chaotic beginnings. But, to set expectations fairly, we are a small company competing with some of the biggest giants in the world in an incredibly fast paced industry. Therefore, as a business strategy, we must continue to prioritize being more agile than our competitors, which unfortunately does at times yield "sloppier" execution. 2.) This is a good segway to your comment about not being "a start-up". It all depends on how you define that term. We are indeed 5+ years old with over 170 people and definitely would like to think of ourselves as a real company. However, relative to our giant competitors who have hundreds of thousands of people and are decades old, we are definitely a start-up. Reading your other comments, it seems like opinion that we're "not a start-up" is tied more to the topic of upward mobility, titles, and the impact and voice folks "at the bottom" can make. Let me try and address these topics in the next section below. 3.) First, let me open by saying I'm sorry if you feel or have experienced a lack of upward mobility. Those are issues we don't always get right, but, I can assure you I personally care deeply about. Upward mobility is a case-by-case topic related to individual performance and the needs of the business (so hard to address in detail in this forum). That said, in general, if we see someone working hard and performing well, we honestly do strive to create new/ upward opportunities for them, be it in their existing teams or even with a different group. Unfortunately, sometimes the needs of the business don't align to create that upward opportunity. In those (I'd say relatively minority) cases, we'd rather help that person amicably leave the company on a non-rushed timeline to find that upward opportunity, then suffer with us if we can't create it for them. As you may have heard me say in various settings, I believe everyone should have the opportunity to do the BWIML (Best Work In My Life), be it here at Republic (ideally) or somewhere else (if we can't provide it). If your observation here is personal to you, I'd once again invite you to come chat with me about it. 4.) As to the topic of "no one listens" to the "people on the bottom" and your last comment about senior management stepping on peoples toes and purposely excluding other folks with expertise....I'd start by asking if the problem you feel is more about a lack of opportunity to voice opinions, or just disagreeing with the decisions after your opinion has been heard? The former is something we are constantly and aggressively trying to improve and I promise you that if you have an opinion on something about the business, I'd genuinely welcome hearing it. Please just reach out. If it's the latter, while I can't promise your opinion will always win out (even if heard), but, I can commit to explaining the rationale behind decisions that you don't agree with. -- Chris Chuang, co-founder & CEO

Explore other reviews about Republic Wireless

5.0
Dec 22, 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great place to work environment

Cons

I can not think of bad things

2.0
Mar 23, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The leftover perks from the parent company were great. Team leads were very caring and worked to shield their employees from a lot of the "ish" that rolled downhill from management. It really didn't have the same toxic, competitive vibe you see at other tech companies. Good for younger graduates looking to get their feet wet before going to other companies in the area.

Cons

Department heads would often "lend out" hourly employees to do the work of salaried positions that normally required extra certification (project management, supply chain analysts, etc.) while also taking care of their hourly work. This (unsurprisingly) lead to a lot of employees getting burnt out and leaving before their six month anniversary. "Opportunities" for advancement were all too often lateral promotions or title-only promotions to temporarily boost morale while avoiding the industry standards for compensation and performance bonuses. The aforementioned burn-out created a Logan's Run environment where, outside of the highest levels of management, most employees topped out at 35, if not younger.

4
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Republic Wireless Response
8y
Thanks for expressing your experience at Republic. It is great that you enjoyed the benefits, environment, and experience during your time with us and found team leads to be caring leaders. We also do always value younger graduates looking to get a start and grow in their careers. In regard to "lending out" hourly team members thanks for bringing this up, we call this giving people "stretch opportunities". We are a company that believes in, and has a very solid track record, of internal promotion (our most extreme example is a former hourly intern now serving as an SVP). Internal promotion can come in the form of a traditional promotion in a current department or a lateral move. These changes are always celebrated because they align with the growth track per each individual. We do provide stretch opportunities for team members to assist on projects in new departments before fully committing to making a long term department transition (we think this sets up the person to be more successful, including realizing that the new role is not a fit at times). I'm unsure of how long you were with Republic but the timeline of these stretch opportunities vary depending on the role. Some of our most successful leaders started their careers at Republic in completely different departments; their time in a stretch opportunity gave them new learnings and supported their next career move and eventual advancement within the company. While I believe that your interpretation of stretch opportunities differs for our intent, it's important that we hear from former team members to hold us accountable and make sure that we are living up to our ideals (or knowing when we fall short despite our best intentions). As for your statement about burn-out and less than 6 month tenure, we do watch our attrition closely and factually have a low number of employees who leave so quickly (in fact, our average tenure even outside of senior leadership is strong relative to the market). Thank you for your time with the company and for your review. We wish you the best! -- Chris Chuang, co-founder & CEO
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