Wouldn't Touch With A Ten Foot Pole - Innovation Sterling-Rice Employee Review

The people and high standards

None to share, management was amazing

You'll work with some talented individual contributors who care deeply about the work. That work won't make it out the door though.

Chronic understaffing, endless scope creep and infighting between team leadership over project ownership leads to constant last minute chaos. Major directional shifts and edits are introduced the day or even hours before deadlines, scrapping large amounts of work and effort with zero accountability. This happens on a weekly basis. The end result is work that is rushed, slapped together, and uninspired. Long, unpredictable hours are the norm and expected without notice. If you had plans that night, too bad. “Year Round Summer Fridays” are promoted but entirely unusable due to workload. The agency is highly focused on optics and internal "culture" messaging, but those values are not reflected in day-to-day reality. Leadership provides next to zero direction early, then reacts too late in the process with sweeping revisions. Creative decisions are purely reactive and Pinterest trend-driven rather than strategically or conceptually led. Generative AI is constantly being pushed as a time-saver to mimic existing work instead of developing actual unique ideas. Zero regard for employee well-being. Burnout is widespread, and senior talent is frequently pulled into tedious production work due to lack of resources. Compensation is easily 20-30% under market value and way too low relative to responsibility and workload. Layoffs are abrupt and impersonal with the absolute minimal severance possible.