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      PAN Communications

      Engaged employer

      PAN Communications Reviews

      3.5

      51% would recommend to a friend

      (145 total reviews)

      Phil Nardone Jr.

      62% approve of CEO

      38% positive business outlook

      PAN Communications has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 145 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The PAN Communications employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      145 reviews
      1.0
      11 May 2021

      What a fall from grace

      Senior account executive
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Some decent people, job security since everyone is quitting

      Cons

      PAN very quickly went from the gold standard to bottom of the barrel. Supervisors are overloaded with too many accounts and underperforming account teams, and VPs are so concerned with client retention due to a rapid loss of historic accounts, that they push their teams to severely over service and work way beyond scope. People are worked to the max with absolutely no work-life balance. This has led to burnout like never before, which is why people have quit at an alarming rate in the past year or so. All the while, employees have elevated this feedback to the executive committee and HR, and while they shake their heads and pretend to care, they make zero effort to actually mitigate the stressors. This place is the definition of churn and burn... and for comparatively low salaries. The CEO, Phil, at first comes across like he truly cares, but soon the façade wears off and you can see he's doing nothing more than lip service. Even though he will be the first person in line to tell you what a great leader he is, he's run the company into the ground, largely because his ego hasn't allowed him to see the company crumbling in front of him.

      avatar
      PAN Communications Response
      4y
      Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us - completely agree with you that the people are the best part about working at PAN! Since you initially wrote this review, I believe many of these aspects have been addressed. We made a decision in 2021 to move all supervisors to 4 accounts max, which has helped mitigate burn out at that level specifically. For employees overall, we've made additional changes to help support work life balance. This has included the introduction of HyFlex, where employees can choose the schedule that works best for them, whether that's working remote, in the office, or a combination of both. We've also offered increased flexibility with the roll-out of Unlimited PTO. Given the impact of the pandemic, we've increased our focus on wellness and mental health offerings - for example, we've offered virtual work-out classes and are kicking off a Wellness Month in March with weekly sessions focused on holistic wellness. We love our partnership with Magellan Health which offers many resources and support for our employees including one on one counseling. I love seeing our employees use their annual wellness credit too towards anything that benefits their overall wellness. Finally, we feel strongly that our Dedicated Career Coach model is another way we differentiate when it comes to employee wellness, as all employees have one mentor in charge of helping grow their career, who they can go to if they are struggling with balance on some accounts and that person will intervene on their behalf. We deeply care about our employees at PAN and are constantly evolving our benefits and programs to meet their needs. Thank you for all your contributions during your time at PAN, and we wish you the best! -Elizabeth Famiglietti, Chief People and Culture Officer
      3.0
      25 Jul 2021

      Room for Improvement

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      - The new business team has been able to secure awesome opportunities to work with high-profile clients. You're able to get a lot of PR experience with top brands alongside hardworking colleagues. - PAN really encourages a work/life balance. While this can be challenging with everyone remote, I rarely work past 7pm during the week and supervisors are understanding with deliverables. - The people you work with are lively, creative and collaborative. Work is fun and I enjoy my job because of the people I work with. - Great perks! Summer Fridays, company-wide office closure over Christmas and additional time off throughout the year are nice. - If the right people advocate for you there is plenty of room for growth and promotion.

      Cons

      - Salary is not competitive. - High turnover! Like many agencies, PAN is struggling when it comes to retention. The continued departures put pressure on teams that are understaffed and overworked. - DEI program needs some work. Team marketing and HR do a great job highlighting the YoY results, however, there are rarely updates around new initiatives or programs that are shared company-wide to push the DEI strategy along. - There is an overly competitive aura around promotions that turn PAN's culture sour. Management unintentionally pins junior staff against each other, which results in tension and negativity. - You work with 5 clients, which is different from other agencies I have worked at. A smaller account load would allow employees to master their industries and better support their clients instead of being spread thin.

      avatar
      PAN Communications Response
      4y
      Thank you for taking the time to review PAN on Glassdoor. It's great to hear you enjoyed working with our client base - we are very proud of the dynamic, disruptive brands we partner with and what we've been able to accomplish together. It's also wonderful to hear you were able to maintain a strong work/life balance while working here, as that is always our priority. While it is true that the pandemic has incited higher rates of turnover compared to past years, I wanted to clarify that PAN has a lower turnover rate compared to other agencies (currently 6% lower than the industry standard). We have also had the good fortune of retaining 95% of our senior leadership team in place (VPs and above) to provide stability for both our teams and clients. Regarding salaries, we are deeply invested in ensuring our salaries remain competitive. We benchmark our data from the Council of PR Firms, as well as from the hires we make. According to that data, we are at the top of the salary ranges at all levels. It is truly disheartening to hear that you experienced a competitive environment at PAN. Our supervisors and leadership team go through in-depth training to do our best to provide a supportive workplace for everyone and a learning-focused environment. We put our Dedicated Career Coach model in place to help support and navigate any employee issues and to advocate on behalf of our team members. As it relates to our DEI efforts, we appreciate that this is a journey. We don’t have it all right. But we are deeply committed to this journey and very pleased to have our first Head of DEI in place to help navigate how we build on the work. I’m truly optimistic that we’ll continue to make meaningful progress in this way. In regard to leaving a Glassdoor review, it is certainly never our intention to make someone feel pressured into writing a review; and we certainly would never ask someone to share a false review of their experience at PAN. It is very important to us that in any forum, employees feel comfortable and welcomed to share their authentic feedback. We try to create multiple avenues for someone delivering feedback – both positive and constructive – via the Dedicated Career Coaches, HR business partners and Anonymous Email box which our CEO reads/response to. We pride ourselves on listening, improving and creating a transparent environment. We try our best to live by those words by sharing everything from revenue goals, to how we are addressing actively burnout, to how we’re scoping programs, etc. We genuinely appreciate the feedback as it can only help us improve. Thank you for taking time to share both the positives and what we can work on. We take that to heart. Darlene Doyle, Chief Client Officer
      2.0
      13 Jul 2021

      Stay Away

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Convenient location close to public transit.

      Cons

      This is the least creative agency I’ve ever worked at. Not a single interesting idea comes from anyone in leadership, and if your title is not high enough, you will not be listened to whatsoever. Clients are boring, yet team leads are mysteriously inclined to over-service them for whatever reason. Another mystery…there are people who have been there for years on end, and they are often the same people who are first to pull a stale idea to share with clients before they make the junior staff actually follow through on their empty (and boring) client promises. The CEO is a raging narcissist who not only named the agency after himself, but is the first to show his face at a party or celebrate work that he had nothing to do with. Staff development is a joke and offers no real information on how to better service clients, or become better communicators.

      avatar
      PAN Communications Response
      4y
      Thank you for your contributions during your time at PAN, and for taking the time to leave a review! It is unfortunate to hear that you felt creativity was lacking overall, as we put a lot of time and effort into promoting creative thinking – through creative brainstorms, to trainings, to sharing successes/learnings across our client programs. We also work to celebrate creativity through agency and industry awards as we know being creative is critical to our success. We are proud of our client roster, and the work we do. To that end, that pride starts at the top with our CEO, Phil Nardone. He is proud to celebrate the work that’s coming out of PAN and to show his gratitude and excitement to both the PAN team and our clients who worked hard to make it happen. In my experience, Phil goes above and beyond to celebrate our teams’ successes – whether that’s attending an event or taking time to send congratulatory emails to our teams on a job well done. Regarding transparency, that is certainly an ongoing goal of ours, so we appreciate your feedback there. We do strive to be transparent about everything from revenue goals, to promotion pathways, to strategic agency goals. However, we recognize there is always more we can do to share and engage our teams. We appreciate your feedback here and wish you all the best in your next role. Best, Darlene Doyle, Chief Client Officer
      Viewing 1 - 3 of 145 Reviews
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      ReviewsPAN Communications reviews

      Glassdoor has 158 PAN Communications reviews submitted anonymously by PAN Communications employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if PAN Communications is right for you.