28 Jan 2018
Pickle Response
8yThanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. I’m really sorry you feel negatively about your experience. Our people are the heart of the business and we care a great deal about their time with us, so I’d like to address the points you’ve made.
Our company is built on the invaluable work of the Fyxers and their wellbeing is first and foremost in our mind. That’s why we have a Head of People, whose role includes HR duties. We don’t think of people as ‘resources’, so we didn’t think the HR label was a good one.
About appraisals: it’s important to us that our clients receive a great service. Our Head of People works closely with our Head of Operations when it comes to appraisals and we take into account many factors when it comes to reviewing employees. As you describe, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology is one component. NPS is used to measure customers’ satisfaction by a great number of businesses, including Amazon and Apple to American Express and GE. It makes up just one strand of our performance reviews; we also speak to customers directly and hold bi-weekly catch-ups with Fyxers and their team heads. The management team is appraised in the same way. This multifaceted process gives us a well-rounded view.
It’s a genuinely sad day when a member of the FYXER team chooses to leave. So far, we have been fortunate that this is a rare occurrence. We think people’s voices matter. When an employee does choose to leave, the company does not announce the news in the first instance. Instead, we ask the leaving Fyxer, if they are happy to do so, to speak to the team at our weekly in-person meet up, so their voice is heard and so they can communicate the news in a way they’re comfortable with.
We’re a young, growing company that was founded in 2015. As a predominantly virtual company, where employees work four days out of five from the comfort of their own home, a ‘flashy’ office never made sense to us. We preferred to take the difference and pay our Fyxers more. We are the only VA business I am aware of that pays a salary. Our offices were, however, functional and safe; you can see pictures of them on Instagram (link below). Today, our office is in the White Collar Factory in Old Street (Link below).
We’re always looking at ways to improve things for our Fyxers. I regret the experience you had with your Mac. In the past, we let people use their own laptops. Today, new Fyxers can receive a new FYXER laptop. We’ve also signed up to Apple Care Enterprise to take care of any technical or hardware problems immediately. When we don’t get things right, we really do listen and take action.
Myself and my co-founder don’t have a background as an Executive Assistant – but every other member of the senior management team does. Further, every member of the senior management team has spent time working as a Fyxer in the past year. So as a group we do understand and appreciate the nature of an Executive Assistant’s role. But every employee at FYXER also has a ‘growth mindset’ and the need to improve their abilities. That’s why we’ve committed our leadership team to one day per month this year working with leading a consultancy firm for our own training, as managers.
As I hope is clear, we’re a company that listens openly and acts. We’re pleased that already, in the young life of FYXER, eight out of ten employees would recommend working at FYXER to a friend. But to us, that means we’ve still got a lot of work to do. We want every person here to have a great experience. I apologise for the poor experience you had and your feedback is sincerely appreciated. We’ve listened and made changes based upon it. Myself and the whole team wish you every success with your future endeavours.
http://www.netpromotersystem.com/about/companies-using-nps.aspx
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=tog+white+collar+factory&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiOpPj9q4_ZAhXlBcAKHU1qCZ8Q_AUICygC&biw=1440&bih=780
https://www.instagram.com/fyxer_london/
https://www.apple.com/uk/support/enterprise/