Pros
- It’s a fun company to work for. - Benefits are great. - Flexibility when life happens and you need to ‘step out’. - You become family with colleagues that are going through the same mess as you. - Some upper management actually understands what needs to be done.
Cons
- Unfortunately the company is missing a lot of structure: I have never seen a company that not only does not understand how an org chart should be expanded but also has not placed appropriate boundaries to teams and how they should be staffed. HR needs a senior Director to roll out proper guidelines in place to 1) hire 2) train 3) promote within the company. Every announcement for new hires is either for a new Executive Director, Director or Assistant Director or a Creative position -has someone challenged those teams and have them justify these positions? There’s no need for so many directors where senior managers could do the fine just right (just saved you some bucks!). Also, at this rate SDJ has its own Creative Agency since over half of the company is part of the Creative Team lol it would be a great side business. - People’s roles are ambiguous: some teams definitely do more than others. This is one of the saddest parts of working here, people have no clear understanding of what their job is and their managers make no effort to fix this. They lack leadership and guidance, please take the time to create processes that will benefit your own team. They lack urgency and ownership. - Upper Management needs improvement: all the new directors have no idea how to properly sail this ship. They brought in a consultant company that has done nothing to improve how launches are being handled. They hired a temporary VP of Strategic Projects and Project Management who did absolutely nothing other than confirming and repeat exactly what the PM Director said, she was supposed to improve ways of working between the multiple Project Managers (still unclear the need for PMs in marketing and creative, what is it that they do because to this day I have not really gotten their help) but other than changing the structure and becoming the Marketing Director and Creative Chief’s bestie she has done nothing. Now they brought another external person to create havoc, guys, this is really simple, promote within the company! The one person who is training and giving direction to these VPs and other directors is the best suitable option to save the company from current chaos, let’s be logical people. PD, Packaging and Marketing Directors are a whole other story. I have never seen so many incompetent people leading full teams into misery and failure. Please hire people who have experience, knowledge and common sense, these directors lack all of that and unfortunately are taking us down with them. Launching a new product should not be this hard, we have a proposal, market research is done, feasibility and timing are assessed, development initiates, production takes place and boom! We’re on the counter.