Aggressive culture permeates from the top down - Anonymous employee Swoon Employee Review

1.0
Mar 21, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Incredibly fast growth, if you can keep up. Most people can't. You'll learn a lot along the way. Most individuals are generally genuine and become instant friends.

Cons

It's bad when 99% of the company becomes afraid the moment management is "in the room." You don't know if you're about to receive a genuine complement, or the biggest "anger storm" of your life. Leads to many sleepless nights. Wages are far below industry norms. Considerable drug problem that management has attempted to curb, but it's still apparent. There's a "rat problem" where rodents tend to move into the office. Food (and liquids) have been banned on several occasions for months at a time. This has had a large, negative impact on some of the youngest employees who make minimum wage. Don't expect to get any shares in the company. The contracts are written in such a way that you won't. Ever. There have been many waves of firings, due to bad financial planning at the highest level. Most "actions" are focused on creating value today, rather than on long term growth. At least half of the employees are interviewing for new positions. I'd only advise young people to go to Swoon for a "career launch," where they'll need to learn a lot, fast. Seems like senior individuals receive 100% scrutiny from day one, and most new hires churn.

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Swoon Response
10y
Thanks for taking the time to write a review and for the feedback you’ve provided. I’m sad to hear that your experience of working for us has not matched our intention to create a great environment for everyone we employ. Getting this right matters a huge amount to me, so please rest assured I am taking your comments very seriously. The growth of the company over the last four years has been driven by the enthusiasm and commitment of the exceptionally talented people who work for us. Together we have achieved a lot. I would love to speak to you in person about your comments if possible. Alternatively, please feel free to speak to your manager, or send me an email anonymously if you’d prefer. I do want to address a few points directly: Remuneration: We benchmarked our wages against other startup companies last year, and we offer comparable salaries. We offer a discretionary EMI option scheme for employees. Roles: We are always looking for ways to grow and to develop our staff. Occasionally we have roles that are no longer needed. Where possible we see if there are new roles those staff can move to. Work environment: The pest control problem we had last year has now been resolved. We banned food from the office for a limited period of time on the advice of the pest control consultant. During this period all employees were allocated a £7.50 daily allowance to buy lunch and refreshments. If you did not claim for these we’d be more than happy to process this for you now. Many thanks again for your feedback. I hope to hear from you, but regardless, I am going to look at ways in which we can address the concerns you raise for the benefit of everyone. Regards, Debbie

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