The casual atmosphere and autonomy, while seemingly a plus, is reflective of some less positive issues at Spreedly. Spreedly is a startup (~ 30 employees) in the fast growing FinTech space, but the company lacks the urgency, initiative or direction required to take advantage of its unique opportunity. The company is more like a lifestyle business as opposed to a hungry startup (e.g., it only requires employees to come into the office twice a week). The company suffers from a lack of identity. Unspoken and unaddressed tension between the tech (comprised of an outstanding group of programmers) and business (less sophisticated and engaged) sides of the house lead to company uncertainty and lack of clarity about what Spreedly is and what it wants to do – and how it can find a way to do it - in the marketplace. This crisis is directly attributable to the failure of leadership to admit to the identity issue, resolve it, engage employee input around it, and provide clear direction. As much as Spreedly puts on the appearance of valuing all employee input, its leadership only considers input from certain employees. As a result, other employees are unsure about how their work applies to the greater goal (because there is none) and how the different departments within Spreedly can best work together towards a common goal (because there is none). Notably Spreedly had a 43% turnover rate over a 12 month period (12 employees out of 28), including women and minority employees.
