Career Death for a Creative - Anonymous employee RH Employee Review

The most extreme example of micromanagement to start. The entire company deals with this, so it should be no surprise that the Creative Team is at the whim of last minute changes based on whim rather than strategy. Know that you will not grow in any relevant creative skill. The skill you can hone while at this company is managing up to difficult personalities. Creative middle management is egocentric and power hungry, believing in heirarchy and rank using intimidation, humiliation, bullying and scare tactics to 'motivate' the team. They prefer workers with no opinion or input. They believe in running a tight ship and kicking soldiers back in line rather than facilitating any creative activity. Most of the creative employees (photo, retouching, styling, print & digital design) know and accept this and make a point of making it work for them with different work arrangements. Es: Working on their own terms to allow this 9-5 to fund their outside and real creative endeavors rather than invest any emotional energy into the company. At the granular level, the company is really behind on adapting to new technologies, the latest online tools, project management tools and team structure methodologies, etc. This company is forced to grow it's longest standing employees to creative management because they can't manage to attract or hang on to any real talent from the talent pool due to the reputation. This leaves them with underqualified candidates in these types of positions. Sit back and watch the ego show as they battle it out to in an attempt to make impact on decisions that only get wiped out by the executive level who really pulls the strings at the end of the day. Expect to work through lunch more often than not. Lunches are sometimes catered during high-intensity times so that you continue to work at your desk without leaving because last-minute decisions are being made constantly and past deadline. Benefits are passable. Although if you're planning on getting pregnant, know that they don't provide any pregnancy leave pay at all. Zero. They completely rely on you to make a claim with the government for pregnancy disability leave. Know that this money isn't paid during your leave months, but rather 6 months to a year later depending on how long it takes to process all of your paperwork for the claims. There is no work life balance. Everyone throughout the company works extensive hours and there is absolutely no encouragement to take any breaks. Groups don't go on any group outings, there are no team lunches, no department celebrations outside of a cake in a meeting room. You would be lucky if anyone acknowledges your birthday or any major life event on behalf of the company. If that happens it's on the dime of the employees who gathered around their team member. Middle management doesn't usually participate in these. This is a good place to make some money and leave without any long-term commitment.