Pros
- Great people - A couple of great leaders in senior management - Work hard, play hard - Employees given a large amount of responsibility at a relatively junior level so loads of opportunity for learning - Great training and development opportunities - Opportunities for progression (if you're favoured by the leadership team) - Ambitious company who produce some amazing work on a shoe-string budget - Great place to learn and get a broad experience - 'Throw you in at the deep end' attitude which really works for people with great initiative and who want to develop and challenge themselves
Cons
The below should be caveated with the fact that Huckletree operates like a start-up and these are issues many similar companies face. Growth isn't easy! - Overly ambitious goals and very little strategic direction of how to achieve them - Many senior leaders were out for themselves and would take the glory when things were going well and throw their reports (or other leaders) under the bus when things went badly. Too many politics at the top which trickled down to the wider team and created an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear (although this was improving by the time I left) - Huge pressure put on junior team members to solve massive commercial issues. Very little protection of the team by managers - Senior leaders claim they want constructive feedback but the reality is they don't, and they get very defensive if anyone dissents - Had a strategy of burning people out. Would hire great people, work them to the bone, burn them out and then push them out. Very high staff churn rate - Leadership team was too big (although this was rectified by the time I left) so there was a lot of strategising and talking but then not enough people beneath the leaders to execute - Externally marketed themselves as a place of authenticity, empathy, pro work-life balance etc. Not necessarily the case - If they didn't like you, regardless of how strong your performance was, they would find a way to push you out. Saw this happen to numerous people during my time there