Pros
Culture To begin this review, lets talk about the good things about the ilab and what warrants the single star. In all my working life I have never experienced a work place with co-workers that are as open and friendly as those you will find at the ilab. People are eager to get to know and help each other, this atmosphere makes it feel like a big family, and coming to work to spend the day with these people is a joy. This familiarity with each other helps create an environment where everyone is willing to teach and learn from each other. This allows you to learn a multiple of skills across multiple fields at quite a fast pace, as you have some of the best of the best in their fields working at ilab. However, unfortunately this is where the positive review ends and reality sets in. So lets have a look at why I cannot recommend this place.
Kontras
C-level Management -Communication - Non existent: They get around their lack of communication skills by never being in the office. If you’re never around, then there’s nothing to communicate. Smart. -Management style - Boys club: I have a theory that most of the year they go into a form of hibernation where they drink expensive wine and eat puppy foie gra somewhere in southern France with their boys club, while laughing at all the money they earn while doing no actual work. Then when they’ve had their fill, every 6 months or so, they show up at the office to make an inappropriate comment to some of the ladies, tell the two people that are left in marketing to be “more creative”, and then restructure the company to follow some vision or whatnot that they’ve come up with in some world that Keith Richards would be hard pressed to dream up in one of his rougher nights out. - Conclusion - I would add something more here, but to be honest they are never around so no one except themselves know what they are doing. - One thing I can say is that they write a very positive Glassdoor review of themselves. Middle Management Split between the few competent ones that haven’t been laid off, and a bunch that have no idea what they are doing and contribute to breaking the ilab culture into one that’s more hostile and political than it needs to be. Lets break this down shall we. Bear in mind that this is only relevant for a handful of middle management, and the rest are brilliant. -Communication - Never around: True to c-level management style, they some are just never around. They will show up once a week for an hour or so and grab a coffee, and make decisions based on gut feel from their 3 year work experience, because whatever who needs data right. - Never being around on a day to day level, obviously means that communication again is non-existent. Despite numerous complaints they still don’t deem to tell their line team if they are planning on showing up on any given day, where they are, or what they are doing. -Management Style -Lack of experience: Quite a few of the managers don’t have experience in leading teams, which means that they have difficulty managing different personality types, conflicts, or helping them grow. In the time I’ve been there we’ve had: - Numerous sexual harassment cases - Meetings & Friday bars with aggressive outbursts from middle management - Misrepresentation of data and performance of projects in meetings with c-level (this point has been somewhat fixed in later years though). -Infighting -Over protective of power: Coupled with not being around they are super protective of their respective responsibility areas, and refuse to listen to advice, input, or constructive criticism. Despite ranking poorly on almost every internal peakon survey, they have not done anything to remedy this. What this creates is an environment where you can’t make any decisions as you’ll just be told off by middle management or overruled the one time a week, they are in the office basically crippling the day to day operations. -Power vacuum: Paradoxically this is present as well. Despite being super protective of their responsibility areas, the fact that they are never around (c-level and middle management), and no one is there to manage the day to day operations, creates power vacuum in teams. This inevitably leads to lots of heading butting in the teams as those that are loudest try to interpret the rantings of the mad gods that only come into the office once the planets align to form the sign of the dollar. -Egos: Everyone has an ego, an opinion, and anyone who isn’t part of the boys club is wrong and doesn’t have a voice. Its as simple as that. Suffragettes be d*mnd.
