Toxic work environment due to leadership team's poor leadership skills - Anonymous employee PRACTICE Employee Review

Thanks for your feedback. I’m sorry that your experience at Practice Makes Perfect did not match our intention of being one of the best places you have ever worked. Our team is young and while it comes at the expense of not having decades of experience in the education space, it also has worked to our advantage. Our team has a fresh perspective and isn’t afraid to take risks to change the status quo. This has been the case with every program change we’ve ever made. Since we’re a relatively young team, most of us dedicate our time, passion and energy to something much bigger than ourselves – the kids and families growing up in some NYC’s most disadvantaged communities. And, you’re right, we don’t incorporate every piece of feedback from all of our stakeholders into our programs. We have thousands of stakeholders and if we tried to make every accommodation then the programs would be unfocused and overwhelming. Nonetheless, I can assure you that every decision we’ve made has been with care and with the interest of our scholars and school partners at the core. I’m sorry that you felt like the spaces we created in-house came across as being disingenuous to you. We truly care about how our people feel. That’s the number one reason why we create those spaces. We also get feedback that we act on. You’re right, if people are blatantly disrespectful to their coworkers and unhappy at our offices, we start to coach them out. We want everyone to be in a workplace where they feel respected, safe and engaged in meaningful work. I’m not aware of the racism in the workplace and I’m disheartened to hear about it. I would encourage you in your future job, and anyone at our company, to call it out when they hear it. We cannot end the bigotry and hatred that is perpetuated in this world if we don’t call it out when we see it. One of the challenges with being a social business is having to balance mission and money. Anyone who has been in a role where they’ve had to do that knows how incredibly difficult it is. Nonetheless, I believe it is one of the things that makes our organization special. We only do well as an organization if we’re doing good. Our business is tied to the quality of our programs and the number of students that we’re serving. Fortunately, both have been improving every single year since we started. We’ve come a long way from serving 50 students during the summer of 2011 to a little more than 1,300 this past summer. Though I know you’ve moved on, I did want you to know that the second highest paid employee in the company is indeed a woman. Our leadership team is intentionally diverse (50% women, 50% men and 50% minority). Having one of my childhood best friends be a productive fit for our company and commit their lives to helping us advance our work has been one of my biggest blessings. I wish what I’ve been so fortunate to have happens for so many other people. One of the reasons why I decided to continue building a company instead of joining a different education company was so I could build a community of people that would like each other, be committed to each other’s development, and have a lot of fun in the process. Thank you for being a part of our journey. Albeit, for a lot shorter of a time period than we anticipated when you first joined. We hope that people will come here and take advantage of the autonomy to build on our company and develop their careers here. Sincerely, Karim, Founder & CEO