Vantaggi
Industry specific: There was satisfaction in helping bridge education gaps. Role specific: The tutor manager position was a decent introduction into a management role. I became more aware of management qualities and processes that I do not want to support or embody. It also was a reminder of the importance of aligning your values with the company’s. Micromanagement is common practice here and managers often are directed to do so. The flexible schedule and hours can be nice. The company offsite events were fun (lots of free things and opportunities to network with colleagues).
Svantaggi
I recently left and would like to share my experiences for all those interested in working for or partnering with Paper. I do not recommend working for Paper because of the poorly communicated and unreasonable expectations which led to multiple colleagues suffering from work culture induced burnout. The company culture is toxic. For more details, please continue reading. The expectations for tutor managers are unrealistic, unclear, and often arbitrarily change and are retroactively enforced, contributing to a degrading work environment. For those who like to work towards set goals, you should know that the performance metrics for the tutor manager position were not discussed or released until mid 2022, over a year into the role, which meant prior to then, the duties, tasks, and number of direct reports changed regularly, ranging from the low 20s for some to into the 100 range. Upper management did not seem to understand the uneven distribution of employee workload and implemented directives that were not reasonably applicable to the wide distribution of work when managing 2-3 times the load of peers. For instance, at times upper management directed all in the role to meet and provide lengthy feedback with each of the direct reports every month, on top of a high and increasing level of administrative work, team meetings, and quality assurance analysis. My colleagues were in agreement that there was clearly not enough time to perform the tasks asked, and meet the vague and changing performance metrics in a reasonable work-week. Furthermore, peer managers in the role found out about company decisions at the same time as our direct reports, with a lack of information and standardization. For example, policy changes would be released in an email to tutors, and the email told tutors to reach out to their managers with additional questions. Since managers found out the policy changes at the same time, this led to tutor managers scrambling for answers, in order to meet a 24 hour email response time expectation - no exceptions. Due to the unnecessary stresses, shifting uncommunicated priorities, and lack of communication, I did not find my job fun nor rewarding. In interactions with upper management, I can say that the culture was toxic. My colleagues and I did not feel safe voicing ideas, feedback, nor asking questions - and I can corroborate other statements made in prior Glassdoor posts. I constantly feared that I would be humiliated in front of management, my peers, and my direct reports. Due to the unsafe environment and culture, on top of the poor communication and expectations, many of my colleagues and I were extremely stressed and burned out at the end of every month following spreadsheet metric reviews. This is not sustainable long term. I do not suggest working for Paper as you will be overworked, underpaid, and undervalued.