1000heads Reviews
66% would recommend to a friend
(78 total reviews)

Mike Davison
99% approve of CEO
Found 78 of over 91 reviews
Updated 16 Nov 2023
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Excerpts from user reviews, not authored by Glassdoor
- "Great people: opportunity to work with some of the smartest and kindest people in the marketing space" (in 11 reviews)
- "4) Opportunities to attend training days and talks and stay ahead of the market in social media" (in 5 reviews)
- 3.016 Nov 2023Senior Insights AnalystFormer Employee, more than 1 yearLondon, England
Pros
Salary is ok for industry, flexible working, driven colleagues
Cons
No transparency, heavy bullying and overall a very toxic work space, e.g. round mails from management on colleagues failures (without them in cc) to create pressure and shame, low work ethics where projects content is fabricated to impress clients
- 4.026 Sept 2023Anonymous EmployeeCurrent Employee, more than 1 yearLos Angeles, CA
Pros
- Exceptional people that care about you and your professional growth - Great clients who view you as true collaborators in business - Opportunity to work from any 1kH office - Fair compensation based on experience and workload - Able to maintain a healthy work-life balance - Ability to WFH or go into the office
Cons
- More in-person collaboration would increase productivity and communication between internal stakeholders - Building culture is difficult through remote work as it is harder to build relationships outside of your core teams (I'm not trying to complain about remote work as I think its a valuable benefit the agency offers, but there is a reality to being remote that most people ignore)
1 - 2.012 Sept 2023CopywriterCurrent Employee, more than 3 yearsNew York, NY
Pros
- Many of your peers will be intelligent, funny, and dedicated to the job. - The work is largely as interesting as you want to make it.
Cons
Leadership at 1000heads refuses to address - or even acknowledge - systemic reoccurring issues faced by the creative team. The latest example was the dissolution of the creative project management team in July 2023. As of my termination in September 2023 - there was still no new process to handle creative resourcing. But again, that was only the latest egregious issue of how 1000heads is run. Over my 4-year tenure at the firm, the same problems regarding the establishment of a consistent workflow between the Accounts and Creative teams kept popping up. Creative team was expected to respond to same-day turn-around requests while given incomplete briefs, and without proper resources from the clients. On assignments with longer schedules, clients were not accountable regarding their feedback, often creating conditions for crunch when their missed deadlines would not result in an extension for the creative team. Management would routinely announce changes in workplace structure without transparency or notice, creating needless disruptions. Without proper creative direction or resourcing, the Accounts team would often step in as defacto Creative Management in spite of their lack of management or creative experience. This results in a "fox guarding the henhouse" scenario where Accounts team members are incentivized to push Creative team members over their limits in order to answer client's whims. Essentially, the client says "jump" and Accounts tells creative "jump higher." I vocalized these concerns to various people across management over 4 years only for them to continuously kick the can down the road. Recently, when I challenged management over whether the creative team would earn greater pay in response to increased responsibilities, I was reprimanded and ultimately fired while taking a pre-scheduled vacation. I constantly and vocally showed initiative in wanting to work across teams and seniority levels in order to address these issues - and instead, management decided that Creative team quality-of-life wasn't worth it and cut down the tall poppy.
21000heads Response2mo
Thanks for the review and candid feedback. It isn’t my intention here to go tit-for-tat on every detail you bring up. None of it will be ignored or swept under the carpet though. You’ll doubtless be aware that there are differing perspectives over the circumstances that led to your departure from the business. However, I do want to respect anonymity here and so will offer a broader point of view that I think is relevant and that I hope adds perspective. We fully recognize the importance of the work, the craft and the business impact it provides to our clients. And we value the contributions from everyone in making the work, big or small, across all departments. One of the constant and ongoing challenges with any company in our space is balancing the fast-moving needs of our clients, with quality of work and our own commercial performance. There is no perfect answer given these variables constantly move around. I’d say in our present economic environment, it’s more challenging than usual. Many clients are going through change in their own organizations and we need to be committed and flexible in order to help support them. We’re a service business at our core and we are proud to have the clients we do, doing the work we do. This flexibility is key part of what has helped us build and retain relationships with some of the biggest brands in the world. To support this we have made significantly investment in systems, tools, and teams that provide truly top class resourcing and utilization information in order to support work allocation across the group in across office and in every department. As with any system, human inputs are critical to its smooth operation and I fully accept these are not flawless. We can and should continually strive to improve in this area. You focus a fair amount of your criticism on clients, our client account teams, and the role of management. Everyone involved in projects large or small are working towards the same goal but will naturally bringing different skills / perspectives to the table and also feel different pressures. For this reason, empathy has to be the most important ingredient in our culture. This requires us all to step outside ourselves and into the shoes of 1. our people delivering the work at every level, 2. our people interfacing and supporting our clients / managing client relationships, 3. our management teams running departments, offices and regions and 4 our clients’ themselves, their changing needs and individual challenges. Everyone in the company has this responsibility and I think it can be our greatest strength. I do appreciate it can be a hard ask without having that wider experience or having experienced others’ challenges first-hand. Your comments reinforce the importance of putting this objective front and center of our culture and I will aim to create increased opportunities for all our team to learn the business from the perspective of others. Our collective success depends on empathy. I would also like to call out that the majority of our management at 1000heads (including your departmental management team, leadership at regional level and at group level) have also ‘done the work’ (to use your phrase) through their careers. We have all spent many years ‘doing’. This doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes but I wanted to make the point that there’s empathy there for you and where you sit. I do want to thank you for the last four years. I am sorry we have parted company under negative circumstances. It’s not an outcome anyone wanted. Looking forward, I wish you every success in the future as you grow your career and build your experience.
- 4.010 Oct 2023Account DirectorFormer EmployeeNew York, NY
Pros
Growth within company Mostly friendly coworkers
Cons
Your experience will really depend on the client. If you get a rude client, unfortunately, you’ll just have to suck it up and deal with it as this agency is very client-pleasing and lacks boundaries.
- 5.025 Oct 2023Client ServicesCurrent EmployeeSydney
Pros
Great place to work Allow you to be autonomous
Cons
No major flags here really
- 5.031 Jul 2023Strategy DirectorCurrent Employee
Pros
Amazing, smart and energetic team Clients are fun brands with lots of opportunity Great place to learn and continue to grow
Cons
Budgets have been restrictive in places, so navigating resources can be a challenge at times Continuing to iron out processes in places
- 3.03 Aug 2023Community ManagerFormer Employee, more than 3 yearsLondon, England
Pros
Lots of room for progression Training budget
Cons
Management can be unsupportive Not much room for error, come down really hard on people who aren't performing which can make working there feel stressful
1000heads Response4mo
Very much appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences. We continue to invest in manager training in order that our managers are equipped to support and develop our younger team members. It will be something we will continue to focus energy on and strive to improve. Thanks again!
- 1.08 May 2023Anonymous EmployeeFormer Employee, less than 1 yearLondon, England
Pros
Mixed variety of high level clients - worked on some great clients whilst there. Good benefits - free breakfast, pension, socials etc.
Cons
Bullying by senior / long standing members of staff - this to me was the sticking point to leaving. You either bend to the behaviour of those who have been there a while / become like them or you leave within your first 6 months. No one has really been there for a mid amount of time - hence why they're most likely always hiring. Lack of support - if you have an issue, that's your problem, Long hours - you would like a social life? think again! you'll be posting on a weekend, checking your emails around the clock, prepping presentations at 9pm at night because people above you are feedbacking at the last min. Allegedly encourage positive glassdoor reviews from current employees
21000heads Response4mo
I am sorry to hear you've had a negative experience. If you feel comfortable I'd appreciate you sending over more specific details of bullying you reference (in confidence). My email is mike.davison@1000heads.com. In reference to your comment about nobody being in the business for the mid term, we do have plenty of heads who have been with us for a few years now and who are successfully growing their careers with 1000heads. Discounting long-tenured leadership and heads who've been in the business less than 6 months, our average length of service across the current team is 3 years. All the very best.
- 5.09 Aug 2023Motion Graphics DesignerCurrent Employee, more than 1 year
Pros
Flexible working timing Workload is managable Work life balance
Cons
Young new office / team, not much of benefits added for now.
1000heads Response4mo
Appreciate the review. Thanks for taking time out!
- 2.014 Aug 2023VideographerFormer Employee, more than 1 yearLondon, England
Pros
Was alright, paid the bills.
Cons
Internal politics could be a bit grating.
1
1000heads Reviews FAQs
1000heads has an overall rating of 3.9 out of 5, based on over 91 reviews left anonymously by employees. 66% of employees would recommend working at 1000heads to a friend and 68% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has been stable over the past 12 months.
66% of 1000heads employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews. Employees also rated 1000heads 3.7 out of 5 for work life balance, 3.3 for culture and values and 4.2 for career opportunities.