Unfortunate changes in management trickled down through the company leading to high churn, low raises, pay & atmosphere.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
With colleague's its excellent! Compared to other companies in Dresden there are good perks (breakfast, drinks in the office, nice parties). Minus one star for the unrealistic goals set to create pressure from management.
Verbesserungspunkt: Don't set unrealistic goals for employees.
Kommunikation
There are monthly Q&As which were originally designed to keep transparency during the pandemic and discuss goals and results. This is mostly PR responses to critical questions from employees. The questions don't usually get answered honestly or clearly.
Verbesserungspunkt: Answer questions from employees honestly, thoroughly and on eye-level.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
Great colleagues! A lot of lifelong friends made.
Work-Life-Balance
Definitely not up to scratch for tech in 2022. They repeated often the expectation of 2 days a week in office, no chances for proper remote outside of Germany. High goals that even management don't have confidence in reaching.
Verbesserungspunkt: Develop a modern remote working policy in line with the tech branch where you expect to employ people. Set realistic goals.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Incompetence from managerial staff doesn't get dealt with, despite HR receiving feedback from entire teams about it (it has also caused almost entire teams to quit). Goals set are unrealistic on purpose.
Verbesserungspunkt: Taking feedback from colleagues seriously when incidents happen would lead to much lower churn and better team satisfaction.
Interessante Aufgaben
Cross-departmental work means you get a taste of a lot of different kinds of work! But the tasks don't change much over years.
Verbesserungspunkt: When people show interest in different departments and their work, be open to more flexible arrangements that allow people to work better cross-functionally.
Arbeitsbedingungen
All the basics you need are there. There is no clear home office budget but most of the requests made to IT for things get fulfilled. The offices are really cool and in the perfect spot in Dresden.
Verbesserungspunkt: A clear budget, as many other companies have, will make it clear to employees what they are able to request to have a comfortable working situation.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
Office management do a good job looking out for the environment. Attempts to bring more of a social conscience (e.g. looking out for women in the app) often get deprioritised.
Verbesserungspunkt: Actively encourage and prioritise actions that will lead to a better social functioning of the app.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
The pay is significantly lower than most comparable tech companies. Thanks to a recent acquisition, raises the last few years have been around 1% (significantly lower than inflation). This means that if you stay for longer than a few years you can expect to lose money.
Requests for raises or negotiations are not usually accepted. When a large part of the company brought this up in a Q&A the response from management was that salary adjustments only come when you start a job or move to a higher position. If you intend to apply here please negotiate well from the beginning, and be prepared to move after a few years to make sure your salary keeps up with the market and inflation.
The pay is average for Dresden. Unfortunately in the new age of remote work this is not enough to retain employees in tech (massive churn the last year, which you can check on Linkedin).
Image
Unfortunately LOVOO has not move passed the image of being "fake." The Razzia left a strong impression on its reputation.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
No clear budget for professional development. The budget is assigned to teams and if one person uses it all there is nothing for everyone else.
Attempts to further your position can be taken as "getting too big for your own boots" and people are often perceived negatively by their managers for it.
Verbesserungspunkt: Transparent professional development budget for every person, not every team.
Arbeitgeber-Kommentar
Dear former LOVOOian,
We hear over and over that the team spirit is great, and of course, we feel it ourselves and are very happy and proud that this aspect is clearly reflected in our culture and that we continue to practice it. Glad to read you're excited about it too.
It's interesting that you're critical of work life balance, even though that's what we're so often praised for. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been working completely remotely for the safety of our employees. Currently, this is still the case if our employees want to and we will keep a hybrid model in the future.
Every one of our employees is committed to continuing their education and participating in various courses and further training. We have an extra budget for this, which is optimally distributed to all who want and need it. For this year we can confirm that we have been able to facilitate all training requests so far. It's a pity that it didn't work out in your case. If you like, we can discuss this again to understand why it did not work in your case, in order to improve such situations for the future.
We take your evaluation and criticism seriously and when you are open to it, we would like to have another exchange with you in order to better understand your statements. The unrealistic goals you mentioned would also be a topic of interest to us.
All in all our LOVOOians continue to work hard every day to further the goal and image of LOVOO, which is to connect people in a pleasant and safe way.
You are welcome to write to us at job@lovoo.com. We would be happy to talk to you.
Best regards,
Your Team & People Development Team