reivew - Designer Project M Plus Employee Review

Great coworkers and good projects

Very poor management and leadership by upper management, the founders: a husband (architect) and wife (graphic/interior design) team. Communication between them was a huge issue, often would get conflicting information from them. Micromanaged to the point where it impeded our workflow. We had to write daily recaps for them of what we accomplished each day, and even then they weren’t clear on what we were working on. They would often bring on a new project with complete disregard for existing projects and ask us to drop everything to churn out a presentation for a sudden deadline. Always rushed when they need something, but when we needed information from them, it came at a snails pace. She would often come in late, miss meetings or postpone them because of schedule conflicts. Terrible at giving clear direction, often times changing her mind about previous direction, causing the office to scramble right before a deadline. She liked to moonlight as an interior designer on architecture/interiors projects, but didn’t have the training or basic understanding. Promises of better pay but no follow through. A lot of talk about great company culture but it was all a front.

Employees were great - everyone BUT the owners knew how to communicate with one another. Did not have an issue working with the different teams.

Absolutely no leadership (hence why employees did not respect the owners), and the owners were never reliable (ie - they wouldn't show up at the office until later in the afternoon or not at all). I wouldn't know if the owners would show up at the office at all or not - it was always a guessing game, which in turn made everyone else irritated on the team when we had deadlines to meet. One of the owners in particular is super passive aggressive. Apparently she has a track record of not being able to keep her team members on board for too long because she controls and has to absolutely have input in EVERYTHING --- doesn't work well for the designers on the teams. Everyone is always frustrated but nobody says anything because at the end of the day, we're all getting paid to do our jobs (even if it is to be told how to do it). I spent so much time trying to help re-structure some of the management roles so we can have a clear workflow everyone was happy with - the owners frankly didn't give a crap -- they pretended like they did on the surface level, but neither of the owners implemented any of the changes that were merely suggested by multiple team members to help improve their workplace and company culture -- which is absolutely a clown show. Oh and not to mention, when I was let go (due to the impact of Covid-19), I was literally let go by their accounting "HR" contact at the end of the workday... No other email or call followup from either owners, whom I worked very closely with since I've been onboarded. After working closely with them and the team for a few months, I felt like the way I was let go was absolutely cold (understatement) and they didn't care enough to followup when I was let go DURING A PANDEMIC (which by the way, I also lost my health insurance on the same day). Overall, this was by far, one of the most disappointing and unprofessional workplaces I've ever worked at. Would NEVER recommend anyone to work for this company unless the management gets their act together.