Going Downhill Fast - Anonymous employee GTB Employee Review

Upper management, upper management, upper management. Under this new regime, morale and the agency dynamic has gone on a rapid downward spiral. At our “more intimate” town hall meetings, where we were told the meetings were being held so they could be more interactive and comments could be heard more clearly, we were treated to a three-ring circus of lies and half-truths like it was a competition. Some of the highlights include, but are certainly not limited to: • The COO telling us that the bad morale that’s being experienced agency-wide is just a rumor. This is a clear example of exactly how out of touch upper management is. • COO’s comment, “All you care about is Summer Fridays and God Damned hot dog parties.” • Apparently, working from home is acceptable to our CEO, but frowned down on our COO. However, during that same meeting, our COO told us that she worked from home several days a week after she had one of her kids. • Both our COO and CEO denying walking around the buildings after-hours to see if anyone else was working. This was said even after several employees saw them walking around and heard then negatively commenting on how few people were in the office. This took place just months after the “butts-in-seats by 9:00” mandate was handed down. You can’t have it both ways when you’re not willing to compensate or recognize your staff for their performance. • Being told that raises were up to individual managers. I’ll hand it to them on this one. Raises are up to the managers. BUT when upper management gives department managers $10k to cover raises for 20 or more people, well . . . you do the math. • In the past four months, our Creative Director and HR Director were both fired. Employees at least received a short, cold note announcing the Creative Director’s “departure”, but there was never any mention of the HR Director being fired just three months after starting at GTB (and relocating her entire family, including young children). Understandably, we are not entitled to the details surrounding those decisions. However, treating us like adults and sharing the basic information with us would be the right thing to do. It’s moves like these that cause the rumor mill (that our CEO and COO claim to hate so much) to churn. Tell us what’s going on so people don’t have to speculate. It’s that simple. • When the issue of compensation came up, Our CEO had the audacity to say that no one is ever happy with their salary, including him. In their typical tap-dancing fashion, our COO and CEO never gave a straight answer to this question. With the cost of living going up, and cost of living raises not happening, employees are actually working for less money now than a year ago. • Both the CEO and COO appear to be under the impression that all employees are replaceable since there is a line of people just waiting to be hired at GTB. Sharing that type of insight with us does nothing for the (“non-existent”) morale problem.