Don't. - Anonymous employee Agency Access Employee Review

1.0
2 Aug 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people you work with can become life-long friends. They share a common thread of talent and putting up with inept management and leaders. Every so often, there are perks that include alcohol. You can learn quite a bit about the marketing/photography industry to take with you to your next much more respectful and higher paying job.

Cons

Let's start from the top and work our way down. The CEO is a smart business man when it comes to sales, numbers and building projects, but when it comes to people he's more of a petulant child and hasn't figured out that without good employees, the numbers don't save the business. He has a tendency to want to be feared more than respected, creating a chain reaction of negativity and poor production through the executive team down to the lowest paid employee. He constantly flip flops from one decision to another, one mood to another and one promise to another. He's also involved in every aspect of the company, putting on full display how much he does not trust his executive team and/or his employees. The executive team operates on fear, and are often way in over their heads for the job given as most of them are "friends" and not actually qualified for their positions. They nitpick all the wrong things and stifle innovation and progress because of their lack of experience leading people, and since they are so fearful of making a mistake that would have the CEO blow his lid, they run around enforcing policies like it's a factory rather than the fun, knowledge based business it pretends to be. The pay for general employees is just horrific. They refuse to pay anyone what they are worth, and haggle over $100 when it comes time for an annual review. They will tell you that they give merit based raises upon your job acceptance - this is a lie, don't believe it and run to the nearest interview that respects you enough to tell you the truth. Also, most if not all employees are salaried, which is fine - except when they have you doing a job that requires more than 8 hours in a day and frown at you and 'reflect' that on your annual review if you don't work past the 5 o'clock whistle. They consistently exercise poor judgment when choosing managers, most of them being unqualified and totally void of people skills. That, coupled with their propensity to hire young staff that are ambitious but don't know much is a recipe for disaster if you're not involved in the clique of 'friends' that make up the executive team. The young staff wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't obvious that they just don't want to the price tag that comes with real talent. The young staff is not led and supported properly, in which case the quality of work that they have the potential to produce is stifled. Clients complain relentlessly, and most of it has to do with a serious disconnect between what sales are selling and what service they're actually producing. However, these complaints are in fact taken seriously which is good for the customer but bad for the service employee because all that blame is put directly on the employee that's making a quarter of what the sales person is making, meanwhile they're the reason the complaints creep up in the first place. Also - the executive team and the CEO do not listen to the folks that are doing the job everyday. Your input is literally useless. As an example, if the CEO or the executive team were to read this review, they'd most likely just take it all as an insult and get angry about this as opposed to actually reading and comprehending all the elements in this that should seriously be considered if they are to succeed. Overall, the company truly had the potential to be a great place to work, and the service has its place in the industry, but poor leadership/management, lack of trust and unwillingness to hire the right talent because of pay has hindered it's growth, and I would not be the least bit surprised if it shut its doors eventually for good.

Explore other reviews about Agency Access

5.0
1 Oct 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I worked here for almost 5 years and it was a truly wonderful, stable place to work. If you are looking to get your foot in the door for data entry, marketing, client management, or artist relations, this is definitely a great place to start. Extremely zen environment with a ton of nice independent work (not to mention, completely remote!) Management is incredibly kind and accommodating, and the Research department is the best! Everybody has a good and chill attitude, it's a small team. If something needs to be changed, taught, or corrected, it is done so with communication and kindness, not punishment. Research has the most exemplary leadership I ever saw in any department. The stable repetition and routine of each day made for a pretty stress-free environment. On phones, I'd occasionally get to chat with some pretty neat artists and it was always nice to help those clients. I also had the opportunity to rate art/photography portfolios, so that was cool! General feeling of satisfaction from leading a few data entry projects was also really nice. Work-life balance was absolutely perfect.

Cons

Ah, the pay! My mortal enemy lol if it weren't for this, I would have never left. I miss y'all!!!!!! For the Research department, it's definitely unfortunately not a position you'll be able to move out on (even with the occasional raises that happened over the years) but if you stick with it and take an active interest in the different projects there, you'll be able to move on to something that will allow you to start your life.

5.0
25 Sept 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I loved working with the CEO.

Cons

The business model of the company changed.

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