Oppressive surveillance dictatorship - Tecologist Tecology Employee Review

I've been at Tecology for a little while and all I can say is that I'm not really sure what the negative reviews are talking about. Definitely not my or my coworkers experience here. Morale is pretty decent, benefits are good, culture feels like it improved once we went to hybrid and saw each other more often. There also is a pretty clear ladder for promotions, which I appreciate.

I think there could be a better emphasis on the successes of individuals to help boost someone's confidence level. We have something called Kudo's where a coworker can call someone out for going above and beyond, but hearing from management on work achievements could be a cool addition.

As stated in most these reviews, the handful of people you work with (minus managers) are actually really great individuals.

I worked at Tecology for a little over a year… and here’s some of things that at first glance didn’t strike me as “cons” but later became larger issues because the policies were significantly more inflexible than initially presented. Hybrid schedule: you are assigned into a “group” and that group becomes your pod for in-office days for a period of thirty days. If for whatever reason you would like to trade an in-office day with a remote day, you have to give a minimum of 2 week notice AND have to ask a coworker to come into the office for you. If you are unable to give enough advance notice for trading a in-office day for a remote day your “score” is impacted. Also, any “in-office” days that you miss will have to make up the following “remote” day. I believe in this situation you also get marked for 4 “unplanned” hours even though you worked a full day. Attendance: sort of a continuation from above - but something I learnt like 6months in was that if I clocked any less than 8hours for the day, say 7hr 55min, 5min would be marked as “unplanned absence” and would negatively impact my “score”. And likewise with any “unplanned” absences. If you are unable to give two weeks notice, all missed days are “negative/unplanned hours”. They don’t care if you’re sick, or have kid issues, or family issues… with the exception of managers - they definitely don’t follow these same rules EVEN THOUGH they say they do. Assigned seats: every thirty days they rotate your in-office pod, and with that your desk too. This seems fine until you realize that you could end up on with your back to all the managers… again harmless if you don’t mind feeling like your managers are standing over your shoulder for 8hours. Now for the “score”: they have a rubric they track your attendance, professionalism, efficiency (measured by time logged on each ticket - anything less than 7hr 25min puts you in the “red”, and a couple others I don’t care to get into. Your total score is then evaluated and determines the amount of “bonus” you receive. So yes, if you get covid and can’t go to work for two weeks that will negatively impact your score and ultimately your bonus. Another thing, they make you take a picture of the space you will be working at remotely, and they have to approve of it. Also - you can ONLY work remotely from the agreed upon home office. They check your IP, this was openly stated to everyone. Another thing - chatting while in the office with coworkers is discouraged. And the monthly happy hours are weird, hardly no one goes beside the most tenured employees and newbies trying to meet their coworkers. And good luck on trying to figure out how your “score” is calculated, I never got a clear formula or answer for this.