2y
Thank you for taking the time to write a review. I also share your perspectives on the team members here at Sovos – we have some highly capable people that leadership needs to empower in any way we possibly can.
Regarding your commentary on meetings, I think we’re making strong progress to reduce meetings that aren’t necessary to the growth of the business, but it takes time. The business is going through a fairly big transformation. On the product side, we’re moving from point to platform. On the GTM side, we’re trying to centralize some global functions (such as demand generation), while still allowing for the important contextualization that needs to occur in the specific countries. Add in that Sovos prides itself in allowing many employees to work remotely or in a hybrid fashion, meetings can often be a consequence of those factors. And in that regard, I don’t know that challenge to be unique to us.
We haven’t sat idle here, either. We incorporated “Meeting Free Days,” where we encourage teams to avoid scheduling internal meetings so there is a full day to focus on any tasks that need to be completed. Meeting Free Days began as an employee lead idea, and the concept has continued to receive great feedback from our teams since implementation. In addition, we’re encouraging teams to think carefully about what constitutes holding a meeting, versus something that can be achieved via a brief Teams chat or email.
Regarding your comment on employee turnover, I want to address that directly. While we understand we’ve had to make several org changes to meet market needs, the fact is, we’re currently experiencing our lowest turnover rate in recent Sovos history. We recognize that turnover is unavoidable in some cases at every company, and we will continue to monitor these statistics and improve any areas of concern that may arise in the future.
As you state you are a former employee, if you weren’t already aware, you may be glad to hear that we have gone through dramatic organizational change to remove our former “line of business” silos and focused on organizing teams within functional departments.
Lastly, I wish I understood that perspective with greater depth, because I see a different reality on the ground here. More than two-thirds of our employees live and work outside of the U.S., and they are focused on products and services that help our global customers meet compliance requirements outside of the U.S. Within the US itself, we’re also well distributed. Our CEO, Kevin Akeroyd, is based on the U.S. west coast, as is our President of Revenue.
We wish you the best of luck in your journey beyond Sovos and greatly value your time spent with us. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help us continue to reach above and beyond our goals as an organization.
- Chris Lynch, Chief Marketing Director