MGA Entertainment Reviews

Where to start? I'm am writing this review to give future employees an insight to the day-to-day culture of MGA Entertainment. Something I wish I was given before excepting a role here. This company offers ZERO flexibility. You want to work from home? Forget it. This type of work is not allowed, period. The CEO lacks the humility or foresight to allow his employees to work anywhere but in the office. If you aren't at work, then "you're stealing from him." You want to see inside the psyche of the CEO? Follow him on Linkedin. His attitude is one of a bully, who shows a complete lack of empathy for others. Anyone who has worked here will tell you that he/she lived in fear while working for MGA. Fear of the CEO, fear of the head of HR, fear of leadership in general. The positive reviews posted on glassdoor are fake. The CEO demands that employees log on to glassdoor and instructs them to leave positive reviews in order to increase his and the overall company rating. If you don't follow orders, you get fired. Do not believe any of the positive ratings. Educate yourself before you ever think about taking a role at MGA. Ask former employees and they will provide you the honest information about the culture and work/life balance (which there is none). Overall, there is absolutely no compassion for employees and their families. The leadership at MGA will own you 24/7.

Leadership: Isaac Larian is a whip-smart business leader but he is not a kind man. He is impatient, out of touch and conflates intense pressure with good leadership. He has built his company from nothing to the fourth largest toy company in the world and he owns it outright. Far be it for me to criticize him in that respect—he knows how to survive and thrive. His company can be better though… Organization: MGA tries to be organized, every couple of years they introduce some new system or process. Ultimately however, no training, or enforcement ever accompanies these directives and they fail or litter our workflow with unused or misunderstood technology and steps that only serve as pitfalls to efficiency. Hong Kong counterparts are overworked and designers have little support or guidance unless their manager knows how to do what they need. Some divisions lack project managers to help everyone keep to schedules set by planning—instead they rely too heavily on their designers to track everything themselves. In general many items and details get missed, making for an extremely sloppy process that is burdened by constant last minute fixes and running changes. Inexperienced designers have to learn quickly how to project manage several items quickly or fail utterly. The pressure can be crushing designers and the reason many choose to leave or are fired. Compensation: Salary and benefits are mediocre and raises…are anemic at best. I have never received so woefully inadequate a raise as I have at MGA. Some people are lucky to receive one in 3 years—when they do…it could be 3%. Inflation is at an alarming 5% in 2021 and the highest merit raise MGA offered its staff (without a promotion) was 3 pitiful percentage points. To add to the lamentable compensation package, the health insurance is mediocre by even US standards (or lack thereof). The 401k is rather weak and laden with fees, there is some match but nothing compared to Mattel. Remote work: It seems like the CEO is personally opposed to remote work—he built this campus to encourage communication and productivity (the last offices were a dump). He is not a trusting sort by any means. While they did allow workers to work remotely during the pandemic, there is pressure to return to the office that many workers are not yet comfortable with. To be sure, when the pandemic is over, there will be little discussion or remote days for employees. Exodus: Lately many talented people have chosen to leave. For many and varying reasons. I suspect the top three reasons will be lack of adequate pay/raises, lack of promotion opportunities and last, the intense pressure to succeed or else culture. The biggest reason to NOT work at MGA: Some companies in the toy industry will not hire you straight out of MGA over fears of lawsuits. Working at MGA, despite its amazing success is something of a scarlet letter for other HRs. MGA needs to rectify that situation so people aren't scared off from taking a job here because they worry they will be untouchable elsewhere.