-There is a disconnect between the culture Hawkes advertises (flexibility, laid back "family style" office, open to feedback) and the culture that exists. The culture that exists discourages friendships between departments (Sales and Training and Support or between Marketing and Sales etc.), rejects new ideas or critical feedback, and takes away (even a high performing) employee's autonomy by limiting their ability to work from home and micromanaging their progress.
-The culture that exists seems to be slightly different depending on if you work upstairs (Marketing, Sales, TSRs, Tech Support etc) or downstairs (Content, Product, Devs etc.) in terms of flexibility and autonomy.
- Management has lots of room to improve in their communication between one another and between their employees. I found my manager to be disorganized, insincere, and more of a hinderance to getting my job done successfully than as someone who empowered me to grow and work efficiently. There is very little transparency between departments, within a team, nor between a manager and their employee. This lack of communication causes inefficiencies in processes, redundant work across departments, and leaves employees without a clear understanding of their performance and areas of improvement.
-There is a culture of fear perpetuated by management, that discourages employees from speaking up, and I spoke to other employees who, even though they were high performers, were constantly worried they would be fired because managers were quick to reprimand an employee for a mistake, but were slow to give constructive feedback or acknowledgement for a job well done.
-Overall there is a feeling that the bottom line is more important than creating long lasting solutions for Hawkes' customers or creating a welcoming, inclusive, and functional place for employees to do great work. The company puts bandaids and short term solutions on problems they could be leading the industry in.
-Hawkes has neglected to create opportunities for talented employees to succeed and there are little opportunities for growth within the company. Most of management has had a long tenure there and this juxtaposition between the long retention of their management, but an average of 1-2 years for their non management employees highlights the company's resistance to evolve and a closed-mindedness to feedback.
