Great ideas, terrible execution - Anonymous employee RedBalloon Employee Review

2.0
20 Oct 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The longer serving employees are some of the best people you'll ever work with. They've weathered numerous storms, have great ideas and are an immensely valuable resource (both in terms of best practice and also what not to do). Listen and learn from them. The office location in Pyrmont is great (even if the layout is disorganised) and the current office manager is amazing at welcoming new employees, organising events and getting people involved. The discount and employee perks are decent too, even if somewhat expected given the current industry climate.

Cons

Management. There are many managers but very few leaders. A lot of finger pointing occurs on a daily basis and many managers are quick to take credit for successes but will blame their teams for any failures (regardless of who is actually responsible). Quality leadership unfortunately left the building and their replacements are uninspiring and selfish. Compensation. RedBalloon's prized workplace culture used to mean that they could pay below market value but retain employees as it was legitimately a great place to work. This is no longer the case. Either pay more or expect the high turnover rate to continue. We all know the old culture is gone.

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RedBalloon Response
8y
Better late than never? Sorry it's taken us a (long) while to respond, but we couldn't leave this feedback without a response. You're right that great ideas are nothing without great execution and leadership. We're the first to admit we move fast, and sometimes we need to stop, take a breath and remember what we're doing and why. We're disappointed to hear your experience wasn't what you expected - we also thank you for your candour. I would like to say however that we do pay our people fairly (it's kind of a legal thing), but we also understand remuneration becomes more of an issue when there are other issues at play - and you list quite a few. We'd like to know more about your experience so we can ensure no one else ever leaves us feeling like this. If you'd like to share further, please reach out.

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