Toxic Work Environment - Design Staff Farrington Design Group Employee Review

Frank Farrington (FF) runs a very toxic work environment and can’t maintain a decent staff. He disrespects, verbally abuses, and micromanages his staff until they all quit. He hasn’t been able to keep a project manager on staff and constantly makes excuses to the client as to why they left the company. The firm is small (less than 10 staff members) and has a very high turnover rate. He lost 5 employees over the course of a year due to resignation. All of these staff members will tell you that they left because they could no longer tolerate the manner in which FF chose to run the firm. During the pandemic, FDG has mostly worked in the office. He would not allow us to work from home because he did not trust that his staff was being productive while safely at home. We worked remotely for a few non-consecutive months before he would bring us back into the office full time. He has prematurely hired staff to replace staff that left and then had to put the entire office on reduced hours due to lack of work. Some staff members were encouraged to use PTO when they didn’t have work to complete. The company received a payroll grant from the government but still elected to reduce pay and not award performance bonuses. At the beginning of 2020, FF gave his staff members $300 iPads in place of a bonus check and didn’t award pay raises to staff members that had been promoted and given more responsibility. One staff member was forced to step into a project manager role after their PM resigned and the company struggled for months to find a replacement. This lasted for a few months and they were never compensated for that effort. He doesn’t trust his staff at all and has told one of his former project managers this to their face. He even asked a former project manager, after they’d resigned from the firm, to come in during the mornings/afternoons to check that everyone is present and working while he was away on vacation. FF has also been known to be very disrespectful/verbally abusive to his office managers. I have witnessed this several times. He sometimes shields his abuse with laugher but it doesn’t excuse the disrespect of telling someone that you will hit them over their head. This behavior caused one former officer manager to get so upset that they resigned from their position during the pandemic without a job to replace it with. He was also very disrespectful and talked down to one of our former interns. FF is not familiar with Revit. This is the main software utilized in the office. Because he doesn’t know how to use it (or care to learn), he sets impossible deadlines that force his staff members to work overtime (without pay) to achieve this deadline. He sets very small deadlines based on “impressing the client” without first consulting his staff. He’s known for assigning tasks after 4pm on a Friday that he wants completed before they leave. These are tasks that have sometimes taken hours to complete. FDG is the type of environment where everyone will socialize but scatter when FF walks into the room. Staff members look forward to days when he’s away from the office or out for meetings/appointments so that they can actually breathe easy while working instead of being on edge the entire day.