Vantaggi
Generally speaking, Onefeed are good at allowing time during the work day to attend personal appointments, and staff with children are allowed to go on the school run. You can work remotely or in office and are given free lunch on payday. There’s fast upward movement but sadly this is due to an unbelievably high staff turnover, and the pay rises that come with promotion aren’t necessarily reflective of the increased responsibility.
Svantaggi
Working at Onefeed will change you as a person, and not in a positive way. You wake up some mornings wondering if you’ve accidentally joined a cult. You have to dedicate your life to the company just to help them keep things afloat, staff are often scolded and publicly embarrassed for minor mistakes or things out of their control, and if anyone dares leave they’re treated like they’ve committed an act of high treason. The circumstances under which staff leave are often twisted to fit the narrative the MD and whoever the head of PPC is at the time want to sell, and that staff member is then blamed for all the company’s problems past, present, and future. They’re sold as a “poisonous” person who is “getting in the way” of Onefeed’s “positive” vision, when in reality they’ve just disagreed with the poor decisions and are fed up with the constant issues. The biggest of these issues is understaffing, and this could only be resolved by hiring about 10 more Account Managers AND retaining all current staff. This seems an impossible task for Onefeed as most staff last less than a year. You will rarely take a lunch break, finish on time, or spend a weekend/holiday without having to log on to deal with some issue or another. When you’re off you’re never really off. This goes unnoticed and unrewarded by senior management, not necessarily out of malice, but because they’re so clueless as to the extent of the issues they won’t really realise you’ve worked 50/60 hour weeks for months on end even if you complain about it. Due to high staff turnover, remaining staff members have had to be trained very quickly in other areas of the business, leaving them with an even greater workload and level of responsibility with no extra pay. This training is insufficient due to the haste, meaning staff are inexperienced and unqualified in some areas. They then make mistakes, but unfortunately senior management expect the same standard from them as someone who has been doing that particular job for a couple of years. The business is very anti-automation, which I understand is what the MD sees as Onefeed’s USP, but there’s not enough time or staff members to complete entirely manual work on all accounts. You feel like you’re on a vertical treadmill. I think the MD is a kind-hearted man deep down but he’s not cut out to run a business at all. He’s hot-headed and has a habit of getting himself fixated on one small flame when the whole house is ablaze. He can be a little bit “woe is me”, not understanding that his staff are also working the same ridiculous hours and are having the same battles with clients he’s having. People mistake this for cruelty but I think it’s just a case of being in over his head for too long. He’ll admit to not being a people person, and wants to help, but the only way he knows how to do this is by hiring a new right hand who completely changes the direction of the business every 6-9 months. The MD can take constructive criticism and reviews such as this quite personally, making him reluctant to change, but staff are only trying to help and make it a nicer, more productive working environment for everyone. If you take into account Onefeed’s expectations, pay is low. If this were just a normal PPC job in Dorset pay would be average (if on the slightly lower side of average), however the hours you have to work, the stress you’re constantly under, and additional skills you have to gain mean that it’s just not worth the money you’re paid. Holiday allowance is above the legal requirement but still not competitive (and believe me, you’re going to need a holiday after working here for a few months), and as mentioned above training is poor. I’ve been offered much more by other agencies and the abundance of better options only encourages staff to leave. The overall feel of the company is that you’re just a bunch of freelancers all working under the same name. This isn’t due to remote staff or home working as management would like to think it is, but because (at least when I was there just under a year ago) there is no structure, continuity, or collaboration. Junior Executives are left to figure things out for themselves, so they either sink or swim, and no two Account Managers use the same processes or do things the same way. There’s a complete lack of communication and no one uses the CRM, which leads to mass confusion and panic if anyone is on holiday, sick, or sacked. Overall, Onefeed takes a lot from you and doesn’t give much back. The frequent changes are fatiguing and the long hours even more so. I realised it was time to jump ship when I’d been promised for over a year that things would get better in a few months and they’d only gotten worse. I can’t speak for what’s gone on since I left 10 odd months ago, but from a quick scroll through LI I can see that the staffing issues are still rife. Onefeed made me an unrecognisable stresspot and I hope things have improved for those still there.