Diverse environment and opportunities but hampered by corporate and operational challenges - Director of Audio Visual Services Encore Global Employee Review

Nice team, cool events and good benefits

Pay and hours are hard to come by

It's about as stable as it gets for events AV, especially in a bigger market where you can range further from your home location for hours. They have training and that is applied to what shifts you can access: more training = more shifts. You can pick up shifts beyond what your management schedules inside the work app on the 'yellow tab'. All disciplines are available, from rigging to audio to video to lighting etc. It's a huge corporation, so they have a massive resource pool to pull from for training and gear. Given enough time, if sales can sell it they can source it. Great first step before going on tour or becoming some kind of operator or specialist for more pay elsewhere. Many of the directors are competent and don't foster a toxic environment. Some clients are amazing and good people and a joy to work with.

It's a huge corporation. Everything is SOPs and rigid. Salaried positions get worked to the bone for a slightly higher slow-period-proof compensation. Roles are rigid: as you advance, if you're on a supervisory path you rarely get to operate and are expected to move to management of some sort. Pay is looooow compared to the rest of the industry. You'll do better than someone at Target, but not by much, starting out. They have a tech roundtable with RVPs that is supposed to make us feel heard but little is ever done. Honestly every markets techs needs to follow San Diego's lead and unionize. Yearly raises are a joke. The only way to get ahead is to study and work hard and make friends with managers and PMs, then lateral into other positions as they come open. Hours are pegged to billable hours: no client, no hours. Schedules are absolutely random and you will never know more than two weeks in advance. Which is interesting given that you can't schedule PTO less than two weeks in advance, so you can't use PTO to cover shortfalls in their ability to keep you fed. This is the main way they lose good techs to their competition. That and toxic work environments. HR is entirely on the company's side and absolutely rigid, and they work at a snails pace. Document anything that seems sketchy, and get everything in writing from your managers if you can, even if just text, otherwise they can say you acted unilaterally and HR you at a whim. The operational doctrine is that of a Taco Bell manager: hire disposable neck-down entry level labor at low pay, use supervisors and maybe one skilled tech to get things done at minimal cost. Usually it works, but at the cost of burned out techs. Usually. Get the wrong manager and they'll be squeezing this even more to make their P+L look good and get a bigger bonus off your sweat. We're the most expensive AV option, because we split with the hotel, so you're already dealing with clients that expect top flight service for that money. Most of our gear is aging out, and some managers do little to nothing to get replacements because that will hurt their P+L. Capex is whatever the company in its wisdom says it is: you get what they send. Usually it's what you need. Usually. They do a yearly work satisfaction survey, and allegedly get glowing marks. I doubt that's real.