Pluspunten
Sometimes, working at SmartFocus can be okay. It's bearable. There's the odd, brief glimpse of life working as part of a balanced, innovative, passionate, driven company. The glimmer of hope when you realize things might actually turn out okay. A short-lived swell of success. Your team, united by despair, battling through the everyday torrent of unbelievably-awful decisions.
Minpunten
In other companies, senior management are usually okay. They might be hard task drivers, or ask the impossible from time-to-time. But, generally, they're okay. They're experienced. They've done this before. They know what they're talking about. But at SmartFocus? Managers, VPs and CXOs are not experienced. They don't know what they should be doing. Big decisions are made by people who shouldn't be making them. There is no trust in skills or experience, top-down or bottom-up. People without the qualifications, experience or skills are placed in manager roles just for the sheer hell of it. The only requirement is just being able to "talk some of the talk". In the last year, the quality of managers, VPs and CXOs has dropped considerably. The CEO is no stranger to bullying. Every week a line forms outside his office. Grown men are reduced to whimpering school children who wait to be reprimanded. As CEO, and a partner at Fransisco Partners (the private equity company who own SmartFocus), he's focused on offloading the company by 2016 - good luck with that. What does that mean for SmartFocus employees? Cost cutting. Restructuring = redundancies. Shifting the aspirational focus of "doing it well" to "doing it on the cheap". Cutting corners. More with less. Then even more with even less. How about salary and benefits? Sure, there's a pension and private healthcare. But unless you're in sales, expect to be paid less than the market rate. Want to get learn and develop? Tough. SmartFocus offer no development or training. Pay rises? You can ask, but won't get anywhere. Twice-yearly bonus? HR forbids managers to award more than 90%, except in CEO-approved cases. Promotions? Only when your manager gets booted out. But a pay rise to reflect the new responsibilities? "Sorry, there's no budget." There is no job security. 5pm meeting with the CEO? Uh oh. Every few weeks, good people (mostly) are tossed out and discarded: employment terminated. They are quick to use redundancy loopholes to worm their way out of the disciplinary process. In just five minute conversation, you could go from being employed to searching Google for opening times for your local job center. If you're looking for SmartFocus employment reviews because you're interviewing there, here's one piece of advice: don't do it. You will not be in an environment where you can be successful.