AmplifiedAg Reviews

2.5

33% would recommend to a friend

(11 total reviews)
avatar

Donald Taylor

30% approve of CEO

22% positive business outlook

Reviews by job title

11 reviews
1.0
12 Feb 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Learning what not to do regarding treatment of people or running a business. Dave Flynn is one of the good guys.

Cons

Where does one begin. It really is disappointing. I was only at VR for a short time and warned management that the revolving door of people would begin. And so it has. Every week my former workmates keep me up to date and it is so sad to hear. The training is so chaotic, complex, disorganized, etc. One of the big issues for me, though, was the constant comparison to the Charleston site which has since been shut down. The two are/were nothing alike yet we always heard "well, at Charleston they could do this and that blah blah blah". But each week I was there we had to bail them out with product. But THEY did it better. Hahah. I feel bad for the CEO as he has a good heart but I don't feel bad for the salesman supervisor that pulled the wool over my eyes and everybody else with his salesman language. Talk to me like a human being dude not one of your clients. I don't feel bad for the investor consultant idiot either with his 1980s big business capitalist bullying tactics. It's 2020 man and how you treat the new generation of workers - who will be replacing YOU and working for the next 30-50 years is integral to building a culture. Your mentality belongs back in New Jersey. The company claims to focus on sustainability, but the morals and principals they promoted DID NOT balance due to the push push push mentality of working close to 10 hour days. That certainly did not lead me to believe in the mission. Breaks were not really allowed either and I guarantee some manager is going to be online writing a response to this (while you get to sit down) - the fact remains the salesman told us not to take breaks if we could help it. Several times I was told "work hard and we will get out early today so try to work through lunch if you can". It didn't happen. And then we missed lunches which by the way is the ONLY time you are really allowed to sit. But hey, it's all for the glory of working hard to throw lettuce away at the end of the day because orders don't match the reality. What happened to donating that product? I felt bad for the farm supervisors too - they have 5 bosses telling them 5 different things to do every 5 minutes. Both supervisors I worked for that left were really humble Gen X guys. They had experience but I think they also had the deer in the headlights look too. I know they were wondering who in the world was making the decisions that were being dictated to them. I'm surprised they held it together with the idiots in the end of the day meetings wasting more time to convey what will happen the next day. Nine times out of 10 the plan would change by 10am the next day anyway. Those Gen X guys treated people fairly and never spoke in a patronizing way and it's a shame that "management" in their 30s didn't listen to experience or at least ask for their opinion. I know they are both looking so stress free and having a great work/life balance. As for me, well, I will buy the lettuce to try to support my former workmates but I know I don't buy the glamorous messages that management will respond online to regarding reviews nor do I buy the messages on the website.

1.0
23 Dec 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The pay is solid for Columbia. I got T-shirts and a hat.

Cons

Management is disconnected from their employees and work environment. CFO is married to head of HR which causes and has caused conflicts of interests when it came to direct complaints. When discussing work issues with other administrators they would negate feelings and positions of employees because administrators are friends and they won’t go against each other. Administration gives platitudes. An investor has become an "outside consultant". Man if that isn’t a conflict of interest I don’t know what is. The owner is a spread sheet guy. He has no human connection with the work unless he has numbers, spreadsheets and calculations of how things "should be going". Go get on the farm and work and the you will be able to see what it is day in and day out. Don’t spend one day on the farm, work for 45 minutes and post on social media that you did all this work and are getting your hand dirty. They are not doing anything groundbreaking. Hydroponic farming has been around for a long time. Repurposing shipping containers is nothing new. And they are not going to solve the hunger crisis with lettuce! Crappy lettuce at that. The construction side of the company is incredibly messy and over worked to where containers are filled with left over building materials, built poorly and needing constant repair. The software used is outdated and causes countless hourly issues. They still use JAVA! Get with the modern times and use a more updated system. I’m not a techy and I know NO ONE STILL USES JAVA! They ARE NOT sustainable. Recently, have heard on two occasions the company has had to throw out 8 pallets of products and then a second time of 1500lbs. This dumping, along with the amount of trash these facilities create and the water used is no where close to what sustainable is. And they are not making changes to correct this. So changing the way the world eats is just throwing it away?!?! They don’t recycle and have two very small compost bins that fill up in one day, then they go back to throwing stuff away. Their product is incredibly poor, over priced and not consistent. Since my time there we went from one beautiful head of lettuce to two, three or four heads of small, decaying and unacceptable product by company standards. Administration tells us to use poor, inferior product when they know it is not acceptable. Go look in the stores...their product is last to be bought, old, soggy, and way overpriced for what it is. Their company values are platitudes. Not followed by administration and fake. Catch words to get new hires in the door and make people believe they are this new Silicon Valley esque company changing the work environment. They are far from it. They have immature and inexperienced people in leadership positions that make daily mistakes that hinder the actual growth of the company. Along with useless positions that suck money out...what’s a talent specialist, manager of community engagement? These are jobs given to friends, so friends can make better money and not have to do the day to day grunt work. Their training is incredibly poor and does not provide what it’s is really like once you get to work. Too many people are in shock as the company withholds much needed truths about day to day work. Administration has said "we don’t know what we are doing, learning every day from our mistakes and making changes for our mistakes". Sounds like they are way over their head, growing faster than they have the ability, skill or means to and before the Columbia location is "fixed" they are going to go somewhere else and try to make another location before fixing the problems at the old ones. Seems like they are money hungry...not sustainable. Administration sits in their trailer offices and does not leave. They do not come and help like promised when people get hired. No one even goes to the event/parties they throw for the employees. I think that is a big sign of a company when your employees don’t show up to free parties. Their Christmas party was BYOB...come on!

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AmplifiedAg Response
6y
Culture belongs to the people and the company supports their vision. Good luck with your future endeavors.
1.0
10 Jun 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Loved my coworkers in the farm, seriously met some of the coolest folks working here.

Cons

I'm not even exaggerating in my headline part. Long work days, little to no breaks for farmers, no regard for mental health, farmers are constantly pressured to push through tough situations with little reprieve or long-term solutions from management. Even when we spoke up about these issues to management, we were given nothing back but lip service. FARMS WERE INFESTED WITH ROACHES!

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Glassdoor has 12 AmplifiedAg reviews submitted anonymously by AmplifiedAg employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if AmplifiedAg is right for you.