Potential to be great, but narrowly misses the mark
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
- The most notable benefit and perhaps redeeming quality of this company is its employees and culture. The majority are young, international, driven, skilled and welcoming. Ideal if you are starting a career or want to make friends in a new city.
- Depending on your team, you can gain a lot of insight into various topics and learn from knowledgeable colleagues and managers.
- Mostly flat hierarchies in daily business if everything is going well.
- A lot of effort is put into bringing the company across as a cool and fun place to work. Beer o'clock, team events, office space, casual clothes, etc.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
- Some employees are treated as a replaceable resource.
- Regular unpaid overtime and the option to make up hours is only given after lengthy discussions.
- Often negative feedback or suggestions for improvement are ignored and instead topics are tackled that aren't as pressing. E.g. salaries have been an issue for years, while great team spirit has been praised even in reviews on platforms such as this. Instead of effectively tackling the salary problem, HR worked on defining company culture.
- Some managers/team leads are inexperienced, preoccupied or overworked, resulting in bad management and a general lack of leadership in some teams.
- HR is distrusted by many employees, due to their lack of sincerity, direction and honesty.
- Using young employees' inexperience against them and/or utilizing basic bullying tactics, especially when it comes to promotions and overtime.
- Encouraging employees to submit reviews on platforms such as this for a chance to win a team event. Seems like an attempt to get good reviews.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
Ensure the best qualities of GSG are present and felt in every team. Experiences differ greatly between teams and it would be beneficial to find ways in which to promote a good baseline across ALL teams.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
The atmosphere among employees is always welcoming and open.
Kommunikation
Good at company level, but communication between managers and teams can be slow, lacking or non-existent.
Work-Life-Balance
Home office days and flexible hours are great, but the need for overtime can sometimes be too high and there is often no option provided to make up those hours.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Some managers and team leads don't handle problems well. They sometimes ignore employees, bully or make excuses in difficult situations. Top management handled some situations very poorly in the past months, by taking action before fully understanding the problem.
Gleichberechtigung
Very diverse, however some inequalities are present below the surface. E.g. some juniors have a 1 month notice period, others get 3 months. Foreign employees sometimes get short notice periods, presumably to put them under pressure, since their visa is linked to the contract.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
Salary generally isn't very competitive, especially in relation to workload and responsibility, but there is potential to quickly advance within the company.
Image
Employees always speak well of their colleagues and work, but comments about management can be negative.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
Ability to learn a lot from colleagues in different teams and internal basic trainings, but external courses or other benefits are rarely offered.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
Interessante Aufgaben
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
Arbeitsbedingungen
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
Arbeitgeber-Kommentar
Hi there,
Thank you very much for review - we really value your honesty!
We’re happy you value the freedom and parts of our company culture. Nevertheless, we would like to respond to some of the points you address:
We have more than 25 nationalities working in our Munich office who comprise a significant part of our colleagues. Additionally, we view GSG as a truly multicultural place to work and we have a very strict approach to treat all of our colleagues the same way. As you also mentioned contracts: we have a standard contract for every country that is according to the respective laws and regulations and treats every new hire completely equal both in terms of conditions as well as salaries (we worked on those as hard as on the definition of our company culture). In case you feel treated unfairly or know of someone who is treated as such please let us know! You can contact your buddy, the People & Culture team or - as this topic is very dear to us - Gerhard, our CEO. We’re more than happy to talk to you.
As you know, we’re right now in a transition phase from being purely a startup into becoming a company that incorporates the best from both the startup as well as corporate world. We’re doing our best in supporting all of our colleagues in improving their individual skill sets and thus making GSG an even better place to work. Following up on the surveys we sent out at the end of last and beginning of this year the resulting focus groups, where we are deeper discussing the feedback we received from all of our colleagues, have already been held in their first round. But our invitation still stands: if you want to contribute you are invited to approach us and share your thoughts. There are multiple topics we want to improve together with you and we are looking forward to openly sharing and discussing whatever topics come up.
And regarding your last point - that we use kununu’s offer to elicit mainly positive reviews: every review we get - be it positive or negative helps us to improve as a whole. Honestly, we wouldn’t have promoted it if we were afraid of constructive feedback but we would appreciate it even more if it was given directly to us. So please feel free to contact the People & Culture team, your buddy or our CEO to discuss any of this.
Cheers,
Gina