Elephant reviews about "talented people"

Over my handful of years at Elephant, I went from working alongside the most talented people in the industry on the most respected brands in the world to working with the most unqualified people on some of the most hated brands in the world. There are a small number of good people left who seem to think they need to stay there because of the visa they’re on. They all speak openly about leaving as soon as their situation is sorted so they won’t be around for long.

It’s a boys’ club. Upper management doesn’t care. Went to HR about a concern with a fellow employee and was laid off a couple weeks later. The freelancers I worked with hated it but stayed because “the money is decent and they pay on time.”

• No matter how hard you work, you will never live up to the expectations put on you. This company sucks the life out of you because doing what was asked of you (then going above and beyond that) is never good enough. • People will ask things of you, wait 30 minutes, and if you haven’t done it already then they will get frustrated and do it themselves you claiming you haven’t done your job. • Everything is under a microscope. Micro-managing doesn’t begin to explain it. This kind of atmosphere leads to employees not being trusted with the work you give them and poorer performance as a result. This isn’t effective management. • The people at the top are ex huge ego-maniacs who don’t care about the health of their employees. Middle management doesn’t get better. It’s only the people doing the work that are worth anything (not that they get recognized for it). • Working well into the night is to be expected. It’s a place where people are so stressed you feel uncomfortable asking teammates for small favors in fear of triggering a panic attack. • This was the most soul-crushing job because I put so much into it. I literally worked myself sick in this position. Everything in my life was affected - my sleep, my eating schedule, my relationships inside and outside of work, my mental faculties - all fueled by the anxiety put on me in this position. • Beware of this company. They might dangle a nice salary in front of you thinking that will fix every problem, but trust me this company causes more problems than it fixes.

- The agency proposition is confusing and unclear - Key leaders have left the agency and have not been replaced so the vision for the NY office is undefined at the moment - The agency is very client services-led, and I think it impacts the quality of the work as there are not enough people in place to manage the production and delivery of the work - The strategy department has declined significantly over the past couple of years, lacking vision for the agencies strategic offering - Zero office culture and not many culture-building events

Very hard to sum up all that is wrong with this place, but I think the most unforgivable issue is the dishonesty. Lies all the time, to clients, internally and during the interview process. Leadership is absolutely atrocious. They have no idea what they are doing so the solution is to blame other people for their own failures. They take no responsibility and act like kids every time something goes wrong. The toxicity gives me anxiety just thinking about it. There's a very well established blame culture put in place, people point fingers at each other without any shame. I thought I've seen it all in this crazy advertising world, trust me Elephant takes it to a whole other level.

This is a company that is still very much just a sister shop to Huge even if they don't want to admit it. Toxic people at the top leads to toxic culture throughout. - Very homogenous leadership in both race and gender leads to a very predictable pattern of thinking and therefore work. - Despite the homogenous make up, the leadership is fueled by ego and are extremely fractured. This leads to petty back stabbing behavior and divide within the office. - There isn't an actual vision the leadership could outline or even recite. The lack of vision really shows. - Micromanagement culture is rampant. We have people in leadership who should be focused on the big picture nitpicking the smallest of details in never-ending internal meetings. - The client list is uninspiring and the work is extremely mediocre. Even the work for some of the more "better" clients they have are extremely dry and dull. - Instead of investing and nurturing talent, they rather pay an endless stream of freelancers.

Everyone gets their turn under the bus. Leadership talks a lot about having talented people and building a culture, but if the client throws a tantrum, their knee-jerk reaction is to fire someone. They talk up all the business the company is getting, but the employees don't see the benefits. The pay isn't competitive and the work isn't challenging, so they have trouble keeping talent. Sometimes the resourcing team will take you off a project without telling you, so after all the work you did you don't get to see the fruits of your labor.