Pros
Hard to say. Many company benefits have disappeared after transitioning to remote work and the guise of the pandemic. Prior to remote work, there were in-office social clubs, free Monday lunches, company-sponsored events, and free beer after 4pm. Even prior to the pandemic, those benefits were slipping away. Management has offered little in alternative.
Kontras
You'll notice there are scarce reviews, good or bad. For a company in business for 10+ years and with a high turnover, you'd expect more. Take it as a red flag and move along. People here are either complacent or too afraid to speak out.
The biggest problem with this company lies in its executive team and senior management. Nepotism and biased hiring practices continue to shape a layer of managers and leaders who are, frankly, unqualified for their roles. At the executive level, all members are white and from similar socio-economic backgrounds leading to BIG issues of diversity and inclusion across all aspects of the company. Senior management follows suit, with only slightly more diversity. Friends are actively hired in, with no vetting or formal process, only exasperating the layers of inequality that exist within this company. With no vetting at the top level, there are have been repeated issues with workplace harassment and verbal abuse from senior players, including those in positions appointed to protect employee wellbeing.
A lack of diversity and inclusion are the secondary issues shaping this company's toxic culture. Disturbingly, I've noticed many BIPOC being asked to resign or terminated. Likely, this is through no fault of their own, but can be tied back to bad management, poor communication, biases and yes, internalized racism. A serious lack of process in terms of reporting workplace harassment and large salary gaps only exasperate the issues.
The last issue I'll bring up is this company’s poor response to the pandemic. The company did not regularly meet the needs of their employees or provide equipment necessary for full-time remote work, under the excuse of "temporarily working-from-home". Let's get real. This directly ties back to personal privilege and the lack of top-level diversity. Senior management and c-suite are all members of socio-economic privilege ($$$). In a city as expensive as Toronto, they own single-family homes, condos, and cottages with ample working space. Anyone outside of this socio-economic group has been crammed into small, expensive apartments. No dedicated office space, or even room for a desk. While I don't expect this company to solve wealth inequality, they've done nothing to recognize it exists within their own staff and to mitigate any effects. In fact, it feels like they deliberately encourage inequality by keeping many people in contract-based work, with no benefits and deflating salaries in comparison to their parent company, Spin Master.
To top it all off, this company used the pandemic as an opportunity to limit benefits, perks, freeze salary increases, title bumps, and bonuses. While not unusual, this contradicted with the CEO's announcements of profitable quarters and being "spared by the pandemic!". What a joke.
This company’s lack of transparency, poor mismanagement, and overall inability to see personal privilege is rotting this workplace from the inside out.
