Profits prioritised over mission! - Recensione dipendente - Journal Specialist presso Frontiers

Upper management make unilateral decisions without listening to feedback from staff, editors and the research community. They have moved from prioritising a mission to provide a great outlet for open access publishing to instead becoming the largest OA publisher, at the expense of their staff and wider reputation. They withheld promotions based on experience, limited pay progression, reorganized teams and changed workflows too frequently to truly assess their success before changing things again. They push unrealistic targets pulled out of thin air based on their aspirations for growth without considering and addressing concerns raised by their staff based on feedback from the researcher community, on whom their growth model heavily relies for free labor! When providing constructive feedback to upper management staff were disciplined and deterred from future honesty, whilst facing the brunt of complaints from disgruntled editors and researchers who feel harassed by frontiers aggressive email strategies. When I joined the company in 2021, it was growing and inspiring, however management have lost their way, refuse to acknowledge limitations in their plans and instead blame staff for failing. They also introduced biased and uninclusive practices which felt very uncomfortable to implement. Since I left some months ago, benefits have been withdrawn and staff celebrations cancelled - I am glad I got out when i did.