Where to start… I suppose “at the top”. The top management of Asure Software is so deeply flawed it’s difficult to fathom. The management team is an old boys club/fraternity-type atmosphere, where the way to succeed is to be friends with top management. During a recent guest speaker meeting, the speaker noted that smart CEOs of service organizations are thinking about how to retain long-term clients, since that’s where the majority of a company’s income comes from (it’s more profitable to retain old clients than to try to land new clients all the time). The speaker noted that software companies aren’t looking for this type of relationship, because a buyer is a buyer so as long as you’ve got a contract for the product you’re basically good to go. Unfortunately, this does appear to be the way Asure management wants to run the company, since the goal for the Asure Consulting group is to simply get clients to package software and opt into 3-year contracts for HR call center services (which are already offered by numerous competitors). However, they don’t appear to want to invest the time or the resources, since the employees are already overworked and underpaid, and due to other departments not meeting their sales goals the hiring freeze shows no signs of being lifted (that is, unless you’ve got connections with company ownership).
Upper management are old friends of the CEO. Upper management (note: NOT department managers) in charge of HR Consulting clearly has ZERO experience with HR (hard to believe because the behaviors upper management exhibits would imply they've probably been involved in an investigation or two due to unprofessional/inappropriate conduct). Upper management is unprofessional and sexist, and uses power moves to get what they want when things don't go their way. We have watched upper management lie through their teeth on multiple occasions, and our leadership have helped usher in an era where we’ve lost more clients since they came onboard than we’ve gained. Sorry, stockholders! Oh, and they love to tout the ESOP option for Asure employees. No thanks; I’ve probably got better profit odds playing blackjack in Vegas.
The culture is poison, which may be a result of having a CEO who appears to only care about stockholders (don’t let HR’s comments about caring about employees fool you – they don’t). The recently-acquired companies are told they are now Asure and have to be part of Asure’s culture, which is a pity since the previous culture was fantastic and Asure’s is pathetic. Corporate management, including HR, has told us on multiple occasions that the old company is gone and we’re Asure now, which is contradictory to the statements they send out which say things like, “Asure… is made of many companies who were acquired over the last several years, and our strength lies in our diverse experience.”
HR appears to think that being acquired by Asure was a true gift from higher powers, and likes to talk to employees in ways which would get anyone else fired (the “Thank you! Have a fabulous day.” signature line does not exactly correlate with the "The beatings will continue until morale improves" tone of the rest of the emails). In addition, corporate sends out emails without proofing them, which make the company look more like a lemonade stand than an award-winning Technology Fast company.
When we were first acquired, we asked about the negative reviews on Glassdoor. We were told that the negative reviews were during a period when a company was acquired (a call center, if I remember correctly), and the acquisition didn’t go well so they ended up having to close that portion of the business down. I think we all feel stupid now for not seeing the signs, since that appears to be the imminent future for the Consulting division. Since these acquisitions have gone poorly, one can’t help but wonder if Asure is simply purchasing smaller companies then shutting them down so they can use them in order to carry forward or back a tax loss to help their numbers.
It’s also nice that the Austin location was recently able to open a “workplace of the future” complete with digital check-in kiosks, and hosted a swanky ribbon-cutting event with food and drinks. They were even able to buy not one, but TWO pairs of novelty-sized scissors for the event! It’s also great that they can still afford to host a trip to Costa Rica with roundtrip business class airfare and a five night stay at the Four Seasons for select employees and their significant other as a recognition program. Unfortunately, it appears to be at the expense of the other locations since we were told we even couldn’t order office supplies (hey, can we borrow those novelty-sized scissors?).
Oh! And let’s not forget that Marketing champions the fact that Asure is rumored to be the company called “Initech” in Office Space. Maybe they’ve never seen the movie? Because if they had, they might realize it’s nothing to brag about. Either way, it’s quite fitting since the Asure culture drives employees to adopt an attitude which is strikingly similar to the attitude of the main character in Office Space. It may not be long until we're all gutting and cleaning fishes at our desks.
It’s all unfortunate, since the Consulting division really cares about their clients, and Asure got rid of the one person who was keeping the team together. Asure is dragging the former company's name and reputation through the mud, so it's likely not long until having Asure on your resume appears as a blemish.
