Not as advertized - Anonymous employee Medallia Employee Review

Wow you have a lot of feedback and clearly our culture is not working for you. If it were, you would feel safe sharing this internally. I don't want to forget anything, so let me speak to your points in the same order you did. First, you say there is a leadership vacuum that has resulted in consensus decision-making. Lack of leadership isn't the norm. In every case I'm aware of, we are either actively looking to hire the right leader or have already moved the right person into a leadership role. That said, I agree that consensus decision-making can be excruciating. It’s not how I run things, and in the teams I am closest to it’s not how things are being run. We listen to everyone’s opinion and then make a decision, which is different than waiting till everyone agrees. You're right though, we still do have far too many meetings. At the O-Team level we've actually suspended all regular meetings in order to see which ones are truly crucial. I will suggest rolling this out Medallia-wide. You also mention feeling that the culture is disingenuous. All macro cultures are made up of micro ones. I’m really sorry to hear you're operating in one below the Medallia median. While our employee NPS remains high, there are definitely teams that dipped below our operating standards in 2015. I am working closely with the leaders of those teams to make sure we address all concerns. As to your point about layers and spans of control, we strive to target best practice 5-7 SOC for teams with higher volume roles (Sales and Services, to name two). When we stand up new teams, we start them out lean as we prove out the model. I'm sorry to hear you've seen it lead to "jockeying." As to your point about silent layoffs, I understand that it’s frustrating to have someone leave and not know exactly why. Part of the reason we don't publicize specifics is to protect the person leaving (and yes, I know how that sounds). Occasionally we do let people go due to poor performance, or because we're going in a direction that does not require their skills. We have never let anyone go due to economic reasons, and we are working on our internal communication strategy to address concerns over reorgs and structural changes. Finally, I'm so sorry to hear that you felt what was promised during your interviews didn't materialize. I'm not sure if you mean your role itself changed due to business needs, or if you were truly promised something that did not pan out. If you're willing to clarify and provide specifics, I would love to hear. When we have to change someone’s role, we work hard to find a win-win situation. I'm sorry we did not succeed in your case. If you have any other feedback, please email me at amy.pressman@medallia.com.