WillowTree reviews about "manager"

Haven't been here that long, but none thus far

They promoted a manager to my team and he completely ran it down and started micromanaging and just killed the team morale.

Although Willowtree has allowed remote work to be "apart of its culture" it is constantly looked upon as less than those who work in the office. As a remote worker it always felt as if your work was not only valued less but you were excluded from other company perks such as happy hours, holiday parties, wellness stipends etc.. Not only did management horribly manage their approach to layoffs, they continuously reassured the entire company that we were "doing great" and "rapidly growing" before letting over 100 employees go. Management preaches growth but most managers don't even have the time or desire to assist the growth of their own reports. It's unfortunate how Willowtree's recent decision making has demolished any sense of culture this company used to have and I found that many were only sticking around because they are/were clinging to what the culture "used to be". Try valuing your EXISTING employees before trying to hire more.

One we went public it was game over. Literally within months the changes started coming. Layoffs, benefits cut, lack of transparency. It’s all coming to a head. Most recently, leadership has said that they are capping flexible time off (but to my knowledge is not sharing this information publicly— they are telling managers to tell their teams). The pipeline does not look good, the general sentiment within our project teams is dread. The company that used to be WT is now but a shell.

As a workplace, WT is difficult to navigate. I hear they used to prioritize people and culture, but when I left they were doing the opposite. Do not expect to be treated as a person -> you will be a resource in a seat who is expected to bring shareholder value. Cost of living adjustments, support from managers, etc are all hard to come by.

- toxic management + the culture of constant feedback and performance reviews will make you feel like you are never good enough, no matter how hard you try. Management will set expectations and make promises, but when you meet the agreed upon goals and expectations, they will not honor their promises and will give you a new set of expectations to meet. They will gaslight you by saying that you are not good enough for the promotion even when you exceed the expectations. And even if you get a supportive manager, they are at the mercy of the VP above them who gets to make all the decisions. - lack of diversity. if you are not a young white American-born male, you will likely feel that you don't fit in. If you don't match the above profile, you will most likely be the only "different" person on your project's engineering team. - it's a cult. You are expected to give all of yourself for the sake of the client priorities. When you voice your concerns about being stressed out and overworked, you are told that this is the nature of the agency business model, or that your problem "doesn't exist", or that you "don't work hard enough".

Lots of bad business decisions have been made since being bought by Telus - in fact, I can't imagine WillowTree staying in business for much longer given the series of events in the last year. Almost everyone I work with is unhappy with the state of the company and are leaving. The only real incentive to work here was company culture but with so many unhappy employees who are leaving or looking to leave it's pretty much eroded. Pay isn't competitive. Promotion depends on your manager which can be good but can also be bad.

- The values the company once stood on are getting overshadowed by hustling to reach revenue goals, no matter the cost - Still haven't landed on an effective people-management structure after many iterations - Career advancement can be stalled by things outside of your control whether it be being allocated to a project that does not give opportunities for you to meet requirements for a promotion (or being unallocated for an extended period), having a manager that doesn't put in effort for you because they are spread thin with other responsibilities, or there simply being no budget for merit increases or positions available to grow into - New policies have been put into place that only meet the business's needs and are not considerate of employee experience. PTO may be denied or limited during the holidays, whether or not you hit the limit. You are asked to work 40 billable hours to the client and any other required responsibilities not directly related to the project including admin tasks, interviewing, manager responsibilities, and company-wide meetings have to be done outside of those 40 hours.

The pay level has always been a sore point at WillowTree. Part of the guiding vision of the company was that college towns such as C'ville or Durham could provide just as high quality talent as NYC, SF or Seattle, and the company could capitalize on the cost of living difference. Unfortunately, Charlottesville is considerably more expensive than they give it credit for, so earnings after rent or mortgage could be tight. But, frankly, it was worth it to me to be able to work for a company like WillowTree was at the time. Things started to come undone in 2022. Although it appeared that things were going great guns, lots of clients, etc., it became evident that management's time was more engaged in selling out the company for a big payout. This created a truly dual track company - one for the bulk of workers who had very meager option packages, and one for the those for whom the system had been rigged to provide them fat option packages. Once the merger became a done deal, it became clear that work at WillowTree was much more about squeezing clients for more fees than doing incredible work. Day to day, I was still very happy to show up and be with my wonderful colleagues on our projects, but I could definitely sense the pressures being dealt with by the managers. But I was assured by the many times the CEO had gone out of his way to stress all the hard negotiating they had done to make sure WillowTree would continue operating as it always had, with its open management, making every effort to avoid layoffs (as it did in 2020, in a move that really had earned lots of goodwill from me and many others). That was all shattered at about 4:45 pm on 23 May 2023, when we all received an e-mail letting us know that offices would be closed the next day, we should work from home and keep an eye on our e-mail. The next day 12% of the company was let go. The way it was handled was simply horrible, and went against everything I considered WillowTree to have stood for. I would advise anyone considering a position with WillowTree to stay as far away as possible from this dying company, and certainly do not put any faith in the numbers I'm sure it will continue publishing, showing off-the-charts employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, etc. Those were earned by old WillowTree, a company that no longer exists, except as a matter of corporate law. New WillowTree (or Telus WillowTree) is a completely different thing altogether, and I would keep away. I have no doubt that most of my former colleagues who survived this round spent the following long holiday weekend updating their resumes.