This is by far one of the most unethical, pitiful, pathetic, poorly run, poorly managed, most disrespectful companies I've ever known of in my life. In the time span of a year and six months, two “sister” newspaper offices in nearby locations who worked extensively together, both containing four office positions, saw a turnover of 12 people. That many people cannot lie about a workplace. In the year I worked for this company, I witnessed people being fired left and right for their inability to reach completely unrealistic standards (mainly outrageous sales goals), people walking off their jobs, and extremely sexist and unprofessional behavior from upper management at Womack.
Unethical practices are rampant at Womack. Lying (both upper management doing it themselves and also instructing other employees to do it to people in the community), dishonesty, favoritism, slandering coworkers, gender inequality - I witnessed it all. On numerous occasions too.
Firing people without warning or driving people away is the way Womack handles most situations. Even if you do put in a notice, they tell you to leave right away to avoid anyone badmouthing them in the community they work. Womack has no concept of human resources standards. They will change your job description on a dime, put more work on you, tell you do tasks WAY outside of your title and never consult you for title change or pay increase when they force you to do these things. They hate it when you have questions about how to do something they ask of you.
For new people, the trend is this: they’re super nice and helpful, build you up and encourage you, but in about a month’s time, they’re completely MIA and can’t be reached and you’re left clueless about something and forced to ask other unqualified coworkers how to do your job task, which usually they don't know and can't help you.
I was actually lied to about what my responsibilities would include upon being hired. They failed to mention three side publications apart from the newspaper that were NOT listed in the job description nor told to me during the interview. It was significantly more work and made for a very poor work-life balance. At the end of my time working for Womack, upper management came up with the idea on a whim that they wanted all of their writers for all of their papers to write a minimum of one story every single day which by all journalistic standards is completely impossible with an editorial staff of two people in most offices (and especially in small towns, which all of their newspapers are based in.) This should also demonstrate their focus is on NOT on quality journalism whatsoever. When it came to selling advertisements, which is how this company makes a living, there were supposedly rates sales people had to follow by, but I had witnessed upper management simply come up with prices based on what they thought they could get out of a potential advertiser.
There is virtually NO training involved, you simply get thrown into the lion's den as soon as you come into work the first day; the technology they have is ten years outdated, and they ignore you when you say your computer won't turn on; I have it on good authority that all of the newspaper offices (including the one I worked at) are all EXTREMELY old and are in dire need of repair in many ways - there's was a time, for instance, during the winter that a water pipe busted and completely tore down the bathroom ceiling (the only one we had) and we were STILL told we had to work as normal even without a usable bathroom and frozen water on the floor. I counted over ten water marks in the ceiling that were never tended to in the time I worked there, some which grew bigger. That's not safe for employees.
A glassdoor review literally cannot cover all of the unethical and terrible situations I witnessed. My advice to anybody considering employment at this place…. Run. It’s not worth it. Most of their offices are dwindling so severely now that if you took a position with them at a newspaper, more than likely you would wind up with FAR more than you bargained for at an extremely low salary.
