Holidu 

GmbH

Unternehmenskultur

Weekly 1:1 with your TL are thought to show what you achieved during the last week (targets = numbers) and what could be improved. Of course every week is different and not every week can be the best one. This constant need to justify oneself (what happened last week? Why did you achieve less/more?) creates stress in many people.
People are not numbers so they experience changes through the weeks also due to factors that they can´t influence directly (for example: long cases with difficult customers, long cases due to external bugs which need to be fixed and so on).

This pressure will be one of the permanent feature of insatisfaction among Holidu employees. If you feel every day under pressure, your work and daily life will be negatively influenced – with bad consequences. It is sad that every sign of mental issue caused by the stress was often not taken seriously by the company

The company states to value clear and honest communication. This did not often happen in the last year.
Colleagues were suddendly fired after being working for years at the company but it was explained to the team that it was their decision to leave or it was a mutual agreement.
During the hiring process, possible new joiners thought that only 1office day was mandatory. When new joiners were hired, they discovered that the process of increasing the office days to 2 days proweek was already ongoing.

Exceptions to the new policy were taken in consideration only with people who live +150 km far away from the office.
The job description doesn´t match with the real tasks. The tasks listed in the job description are related to a lower support level. It happened that the reference letter mentioned only part of the real tasks.
Too many changes in the customer support team for working procedure (at least 1 change pro day!), which were communicated once they are done - and not before, asking for feedbacks. Management explained that any change should help the employees but I can assure that keeping count of all the changes in a stressful period such as summer .. this doesn´t help at all!

One of Holidu´s value is "we win as a team". Sadly, it doesn´t often apply to the real condition. The high targets which were set generate more competition among the colleagues instead of cooperation.
During the meetings, the "best employees" of the month are celebrated. This can create a competition feeling or a sense of inferiority in some people, depending on the personality of each one. In any case, this doesn´t increase a team feeling. Other departments also show charts with the related results but this is related to a bonus which they get if they can achieve better results than the colleagues.
In the Customer Support Team you get no extra bonus for the months where your name was often on the podium.
You are better then other colleagues if you can close more tickets: how you handled the case or if you created unecessarily tickets just to reach the targets, this is not taken in consideration by the management. Another example to show how fairness is not valued anymore.
Unfortunately, many employees complain only privately and do not show their real thoughts during the 1:1s.

Many people suffer stress due to the high pressure put in order to reach crazy targets.New joiners were put under strong pressure after only a couple of months – and finally fired.

I would like to point out that this sad work life balance raised in the last period. Compensation days (after working during weekd) were approved or rejected after +1 month. In other words, you need to always be available for the company but as soon as you ask for sth, the Director needs to check 1month long in order to approve a day off which you are entitled of.
The holiday organisation for the high season was also miserable. Some people requested holiday many months in advance. The request was posponed till middle of the year when any reservation would have been expensive and short term.
Having an international team implies also family reunion=organisation must be done in advance, if you really care about your team.
So needless to say that Director&C.O. could enjoy long time off during the peak season,while the employees were still waiting for a reply for their requests.
It was then funny to hear how these people wanted us to believe that there is no hierarchy at the company and we are all alike

Clearly disparity between „normal“ employees and management – despite of the „nice“ words coming from above.
As often mentioned, the targets were getting higher and higher while the number of properties = guests and cases to handle increased but the number of agents did not increase accordingly. People were even suddendly fired, which created even more stress and fear.
The calculation of targets was changed so often (4 times in less than a year). Really fascinating, especially when only numbers determine if you should get a(ridiculous)salary increase or not. The question was: which calculation for the targets was correct? Did management really considered all the changes and stress this caused in the employees? According to their words, yes. According to the facts, no. Many empty promises were done.

People got a promotion but no related salary increase due to missing budget. They should expect the increase on the following year, which did not happen.
So the behaviour of the management is getting worser and worser. Empty words without a real human meaning. Only numbers count. It doesn´t matter how the numbers are reached (quality or fairness are not values here).

I used to like the job and the tasks itself. It was never boring. Every day we faced new cases, some of them even funny and to be shared with colleagues and family and friends. I think that the best part of customer support is being conscious of being able to help people who really need your backing. When I joined the company, this was the main goal.

When the company decided to reduce costs and hired the new director, things changed – to the worse. A quick and superficial support can´t be a good support. You can verify it by yourself checking reviews from customers. Please, bear in mind not to spend too much time on the reviews done „on invitation“: it was told us to invite people leaving a review only if we could really provide a real positive experience :) This doesn´t match with the idea of transparency which the company promotes. Another example of missing fairness and not willingness to face the real problem.