Avoid Future US - Anonymous employee Future Employee Review

2.0
26 Mar 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Flexible hours, casual dress, free food, low-stress environment, work-life balance is perfect, opportunity for some travel. The actual work is fulfilling. Some of the leadership team is competent and helpful. **Before you read the con, do so with the caveat that Future US is NOT the same as Future UK. Yes, they are owned by the exact same company with the same leadership team, but the experience is completely different. Lucky you if you work for the UK office, I've heard of no problems there.

Cons

Where do I start. My company was acquired by Future and the work experience went downhill immediately. I loved my company and my work prior to the takeover, but post-takeover morale suffered across the board. Future doesn't care about individual employees. No raises or promotions are ever encouraged or offered, there are no career advancement opportunities whatsoever. Communication is a definite failure. Future doesn't address rumors until they are out of control, and only then do they send out a basic email with no information. You must wait weeks to hear back from IT and HR. An average of 2 weeks for IT (I've been tracking). Layoffs every few months, with very poor severance packages. Absolutely no local resources. If a computer breaks, you must contact someone in IT across the world to fix it. HR asked us to send SSNs through email (which isn't secure or legal). HR also lied to us about W2 information. They forgot to apply for State employer numbers and encouraged us to simply put a 9999999 as the number (also illegal). If the HR personnel doesn't know the answer to a question they will either give you false information repeatedly until you call them on it with proof, OR say (and I quote): "I don't know, hopefully you do". They don't bother to find information for you at all. Payroll "forgot" to transfer funds to our 401ks for multiple pay periods, and remedied the situation only after multiple employees noticed their funds were missing. During the acquisition period, entire offices didn't receive paychecks due to delays and healthcare coverage was delayed everywhere else. Future is very "cheap" and doesn't want to foot the bill for even basic programs like MS office. 401K contributions are a 2.5% match up to 6%, less than other companies I've worked for. The NYC office of Future US has unionized and received very little support from management (which makes sense at this point). Future isn't recognizing the union and instead continues to cram too many employees into a tiny office (to save on costs). This means that every square foot of space is occupied, people must share desks (a method called hot desking meaning first come first serve), and there are too many employees to fit into the office at one time, so there is a work from home system so as to not upset the fire code. It's absolute chaos. I don't recommend working for this company. My family and friends are shocked I still work here, considering the sheer number of snafus that have happened. The environment is too unpredictable and you'll receive very little support.

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Future Response
7y
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review of Future plc. We appreciate your feedback as it enables us to learn and evolve as a company. As you know, Future originated in the UK. Although we always had a small presence in the US, we grew exponentially in 2018 with multiple business acquisitions as well as new hires joining the business directly. With growth comes challenges, but also new opportunities to become a fully unified team and to learn from our new colleagues. We recognize that the changes over the past year have been significant, for the staff who have been acquired and need time to familiarise themselves with new ways of working, and for those who have been with Future for a long time. With 400 people affected, we knew it would be difficult to get everything right at the start. However, we believe most of the issues are one-off decisions or actions that were the result of acquisition. And our intention to bring all the employees together into the Future business has always been a positive one. We are aware there are areas that require improvement and we are committed to working with our employees and managers to make these happen. For example, we recently conducted a survey to all Future US employees to better understand the pain points and areas for improvement. We've set up office committees with the intention of bringing about positive changes, and focuses for 2019 includes the learning and development of our employees. We are also conducting a review of our office space allocation to ensure we have a work environment that is optimal for all. Our People & Culture team is available and appreciates the valuable input employees provide to enhance our lives at Future. We are committed to our US operations and employees, and will continue to double down on our people and our efforts. Please reach out to the People & Culture team at peopleandculture@futurenet.com if you would like to discuss further; we welcome your input.

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