An Unfortunate Working Experience - Anonymous employee Pivot Group Employee Review

Thank you for the compliments regarding the office and especially regarding the quality of the team. Our company is full of talented, caring professionals, and I’m grateful they choose to work here. They are an amazing group and we wouldn’t be a successful company without them. I was recently made aware of your review. You are entitled to your opinions and I will respect that right. However, besides your opinions, you make serious accusations that I was not aware of. I am available, or our HR, should you want to elaborate on or discuss any of your statements. Unfortunately, your review also includes some misleading statements that need to be addressed. To those that are considering a position at Pivot, I hope you will not let this review stop you from moving forward. I believe you will find that it presents a picture that is different than the reality. Some of your last points are the most serious so I need to address those first. The statements regarding discrimination, safety and harassment are concerning and upsetting. I have multiple people close to me that have been personally impacted by these painful realities. We absolutely would have wanted you to report these events. These have no place at Pivot, are not part of our culture, and would have been addressed. Pivot is committed to providing a workplace free of sexual harassment (which includes harassment based on gender, pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), as well as harassment based on such factors as race, color, creed, national origin, ancestry, age, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, marital status, sexual orientation, medical leave status, veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal or state laws. You claim that we laid off team members to pay for a rebrand we couldn’t afford. That is not accurate. The rebrand used internal salaried resources, not outside resources, and we spent a minor amount on swag and related items for clients and team members. The primary team members involved in our rebrand are still working at Pivot and/or remained at Pivot long after the rebrand was completed. So the rebrand expense was minimal and not the reason for the layoffs. We’ve only had one instance of layoffs in the 17-year life of our company. As communicated at the time, the primary reason for that layoff was that we overstaffed in anticipation of significant new business, including a major national account, that did not materialize. The layoff was a stressful decision, with many sleepless nights for all involved, but one we felt we had to make for the overall health of the business. If that impacted you, once again we are sorry. During the pandemic, we were thankful to not have a single layoff, furlough or reduction in pay. The only team members that took a pay cut in 2020 were the owners of the firm as a proactive move during the surge of the pandemic. You state that we forced overtime and provided no overtime compensation. The vast majority of our team members are salaried so overtime does not apply. The benefit of salary is our team members do not see a reduction in compensation if there is a temporary slowdown in work. We are not a “workaholic” culture that forces overtime and grinds on our team. If needed, a documented “Bonus Time Off” policy enables managers to provide time off if employees work considerably more than 40 hours in a given week. You state morale is low. Our net promoter rating (a respected employee satisfaction method) is over 20 percentage points above the national average. A major source of new team members comes via referrals from current team members. When I talk to new team members, they say one of the key reasons they chose to join the team was how positive everyone is about the culture, team and company. You state poor compensation. As an entrepreneurial venture, there was a time where we could not compensate everyone at the levels we would have liked. However, thanks to the performance of our team, we've grown in many positive ways. We offer competitive compensation to complement our culture, purpose, work flexibility and emphasis on quality of life. Pivot’s documented compensation philosophy guides us. We pay outside experts for independent data to monitor and adjust salary ranges to ensure they are competitive. Regarding lavish travel, I would love to hear specifics. Our principals conduct 2-3 off-site trips per year for planning purposes. Instead of high-end lodging, and having to pay for multiple rooms, we rent a house to save money and/or collocate those with industry events we are already planning to attend. Finally, employee safety and employee mental health are priorities. During COVID, we wanted to lead on that issue. Some facts: • We moved to “fully remote” before required and are currently still working in that mode. In June of this year, we opened the office on a voluntary basis (once per week) for those that want to come in. • We currently provide a paid mental health day off each month where we close the office on a Friday so team members can benefit from a three-day weekend. • We provided funds for all employees that they could use towards a vacation. • During the summer, we reduced work hours to 35 per week. • In October 2020, in an anonymous survey, our employees provided a 97% positive rating when asked, “When you think about the company’s response to COVID, how well do you feel cared for as a person here at Pivot?” Building a business is not easy and we haven’t been perfect. We’ve learned a lot along the way. Thanks to the contributions of so many great team members, our company continues to grow. Our best days are ahead of us. We’ll keep working to get better and will use employee and client feedback to do so. Thank you.