Extremely high turnover. Last year’s team is rarely this year’s team, which means a lot of project and client knowledge gets lost when people leave. Record keeping has gotten better over the past few years, but it’s still far from perfect. Digital organization isn’t great either, as upper management often chooses cost cutting file storage solutions that aren’t ideal. Turnover is not helped by frequent layoffs. During my employment, we had layoffs atleast between 1-2 times per year.
No room for career advancement. Responsibilities will keep increasing, but pay generally stays the same. Upper management may dangle a raise as a “carrot on a stick,” but you probably won’t actually see it. The line “it’s a small business” is frequently used to deflect questions about promised pay increases. Make sure any promises from management are in writing.
Management accountability is weak. Upper management struggles to admit mistakes and often shifts blame to the rest of the team. There have been multiple instances where major projects were mishandled because of decisions made without informing the full team, or because outdated information was passed along, resulting in confusion, errors, and last-minute scrambling.
