Working here is a big disappointment - werkgeversreview Anonieme werknemer bij CoConstruct

2,0
15 jun 2018
Anonieme werknemer
Aanbevelen
Goedkeuring directeur
Zakelijk vooruitzicht

Pluspunten

Company is on fast track growth, was a fun place to work when I started over a year ago. I was impressed with the people, CEO, company culture and the product. When I started there were about 50 staff which over the next year steadily expanded and it felt like the whole company was a team driven toward ever increasing success. Was very excited to work here and thought I would stay a long time.

Minpunten

Over the last few months a lot has changed. CEO founder recently sold majority interest in the company so future is more unpredictable. Good people have been terminated suddenly, some have left on their own for better opportunities. Part of this I think is the company really doesn't promote from within, doesn't invite critical suggestion from staff who are working in the trenches and know what the real issues are, and the company culture has gone sour due to the constant pressure to achieve higher and higher goals. The CEO promotes himself personally as a religious person but his treatment of staff does not demonstrate true caring and concern for his people. If you can't keep up with the constant demand to do more prepare to be shown the door.

avatar
Reactie van CoConstruct
8y
This is from Donny, Founder and CEO of CoConstruct. First of all, regardless of any differing perspectives I may have on the items you mentioned below, I'm sorry you feel that you're working at a different company than the one you were a year ago. I always want us to be transparent, and never want anyone to feel like there's been a bait-and-switch (be it for employees or customers). So, for that, I'm sorry. I'm also hopeful that there's room for us to prove your first impressions of CoConstruct to be correct so this is a place where you want to stay. No company (or person) is perfect, but as we grow quickly, it's important to me that our values and culture stay intact. It sounds like you believe that, too. I'd like to address some of your points below, but do it with caution, since, regardless of what I write here, your perspective is still yours, and it's not my place to tell you that your own opinion is wrong. But, I hope to provide some data points that would cause you to reconsider. “CEO founder recently sold majority interest in the company so future is more unpredictable:” As the sole founder and 100% owner for over 12 years, I took this step vary cautiously. I believe that the experience we gained through our private equity partnership helps us avoid pitfalls that companies with our size and growth often make. So, we have more stability and predictability than ever before. “Good people have been terminated suddenly…:” Your review comes a day after another Glassdoor review with the same concern, and there were no other negative reviews for six months. So, I'm assuming this stems from some recent terminations due to prolonged performance problems. This often seems "sudden" because we are very careful to keep this process confidential. It's the most respectful thing we can do for our people, but it can be a surprise to those who aren’t directly involved. At an upcoming all hands meeting, I’ll make sure everyone understands how our performance management process works, so while keeping individual details private, the approach and logic will be transparent to everyone. “…the company really doesn't promote from within”: In the past three months, literally over 15% of our team members have been promoted, most of them into management positions. So, I have hard time understanding your viewpoint on this. In a company that is growing its headcount by 50-100% a year, it's reasonable that we will need to recruit some leaders from the outside, in addition to promoting from within. Perhaps some of that external recruiting has affected your perspective. Given our track record, though, you could argue that there’s more upward mobility at CoConstruct than at other companies. “If you can't keep up with the constant demand to do more prepare to be shown the door”: We're a growing company, constantly looking for ways to question the status quo to better serve our customers. We are a team of people who enjoy that challenge. So, yes, I do expect for everyone, including myself, to be looking for new and better ways to do things. We don't arbitrarily raise targets without having a plan for what we are going to do differently so that we reach them, though. We're very data driven and believe in taking controlled risks in small experiments to constantly test new ideas in a way where we can safely fail if we guessed wrong and where we can double-down on winners. Our team likes to achieve more because we like to achieve -- not because I or someone else tells them to. We don't try to "squeeze every last ounce" out of our staff. We choose to push ourselves. It's the same reason why you may try to run a 5k a minute faster or play a song with one less misplaced chord. Some people may decide to never put on their running shoes or to pick up an instrument, but we attract and retain employees who do. And if you decide to play, you should always be seeking ways to play better. By lighting our own fires to do more, we benefit our customers. And when we hear their rave reviews, it gives us even more fuel to keep doing more. Most employees in the world don't think this way, which is why most people work for average companies. And if our mindset isn't a match for one of our employees, that doesn't mean that they aren't a good person. It just means that they may be happier moving at different pace. I think it's fine to be open and honest if another job would be a better fit, and then part on good terms. I hope that the solution to bridging your viewpoint and mine is to make sure that we’re communicating internally even more and that our feedback mechanisms are working like I think -- or else I really am on a pedestal and don’t know it, which isn’t what any of us want. I'll be speaking to some of these issues at our next all-hands meeting, and can hopefully prevent any others from having the same concerns. So, thanks for the feedback, and I hope you see the sincerity in acting on this feedback.

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5,0
27 jul 2024
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Pluspunten

Benefits are good people area fune

Minpunten

Hours long managers are bad

2,0
3 jul 2018
Anonieme werknemer
Aanbevelen
Goedkeuring directeur
Zakelijk vooruitzicht

Pluspunten

-Great culture -Very nice teams -Great product -The company really values its customers

Minpunten

At any time, the firing hammer can come down, it's unpredictable and somewhat baffling. In my time with CoConstruct I've seen at least a dozen people fired for what appeared to be no apparent reason (and a couple people who I considered friends told me later that it was for no "good" reason, mostly stuff made up by the CEO). Supposedly, there is supposed to be a performance improvement timeline when someone is under-performing (this is what we are told anyway) but to my knowledge has been sparsely implemented - just something the CEO says to make you feel more safe in your job. It's a great place to work, but I am looking for a new job ASAP after the last batch of firings because they came as such a shock, and I am now quite confident that the CEO is much more concerned about money than fairness to his employees. Not to mention it's hard to trust a CEO who built a company from nothing for 10 years, then sell the majority of that company to a private equity firm. Apparently 100% growth each year and yearly earnings rising extremely fast wasn't good enough for him.

8
avatar
Reactie van CoConstruct
7y
Hi -- This is from Donny, Founder and CEO at CoConstruct. I actually saw your review after we had our monthly company-wide meeting in July, where I personally walked everyone through how we handle terminations. The vast majority are done with a formal Performance Improvement Plan process, which makes expectations very clear about what needs to be corrected. I also discussed how there are times when we skip that process, yet still handle it fairly, often because it’s a matter of something very serious like harassment, inappropriate behavior, or something that puts someone at risk. Fortunately, those situations are few and far between. But, as I mentioned at the meeting, because we handle these things confidentially, it means it can look like a surprise when someone leaves the company, simply because we’ve done a good job of respecting them by not leaking details of the situation. It sounds like some people you’ve spoken to may not think there was a “good” reason for them to leave the company. Again, because we treat these situations confidentially, they have the liberty to share their viewpoint without the company being in a position to offer a counterpoint. My hope by addressing this in a straightforward manner in a meeting was to alleviate any mystery around the structured process of how someone could be terminated. It’s an unpleasant situation for everyone, but the process itself shouldn’t be a mystery. I am perplexed by the characterization of a “batch of firings.” I don’t even need a full hand to count on my fingers the number of people who have been terminated in recent months. While I’d prefer to not have any of these situations arise, the number of cases has been very small. I also wanted to share a couple of thoughts around your perception that I care more about money than fairness to employees. Given the context of responding to this review, simply stating that I care about fairness to employees probably doesn’t carry much weight. But, let’s pretend that I did care more about money than fairness… recruiting new employees is expensive. We pay staff members who are dedicated to recruiting. We pay to advertise. We take time away from other activities to interview. There’s time spent paying salaries to new hires while we train them and get them up to speed. And, CoConstruct is very selective in our hiring, which raises those costs even more, since most applicants don’t receive job offers. So, it’s extremely costly to terminate someone and then repeat that process to fill their position. Setting fairness aside, if I cared primarily about money, then it’s all the more reason why terminating someone would be a last resort. Finally, it’s personally important to me to address the question of whether sharing ownership with a private equity firm, even with us having a very high growth rate, “wasn’t good enough” for me. That’s akin to receiving a wedding invite and saying, “well, I guess dating wasn’t good enough for them.” Having something good, and committing to make even more of it, isn’t automatically a bad thing. Our team does an incredible job of crafting great software and taking great care of our clients. Most homebuilders and remodelers do not have an all-in-one system like us at all -- and their businesses will be better off if they do. And as proud as I am of what we accomplished in the 12+ years when I bootstrapped CoConstruct and was the sole owner, I’m even more proud that we’re pushing to the next level to bring our system to even more people, faster, to end the chaos in their days and to create rewarding building experiences for them and their clients. Again, I hope the meeting that we had just a few days after your post helped give you a different perspective on your concerns. If not, though, if you don’t feel comfortable coming to me to discuss the concerns, I hope you’ll consider talking to one of our HR folks. Our HR team keeps conversations in confidence, and is directly involved in any performance management issues, so they have any details you’d need to feel comfortable in the security of your position with us.
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