Digital marketing is a very dynamic and fast-changing industry, and unfortunately there are many factors that hold ROI back from keeping up.
Beyond updates to the look and feel of the slides, the sales pitch for our services didn’t change at all over the years that I worked there, which is quite frankly unacceptable in an industry like digital marketing, considering how much changed during those years. Since leaving ROI, I’ve seen many sales pitches from similar vendors and it’s quite striking how far behind ROI is, especially when they’re on the higher end of the price range for their services. The sales pipeline has dried up quite a bit over the last several months, and this is likely a huge contributing factor.
While there is a robust new hire training program and on-going training sessions held each month, advanced technical training for client services is sorely needed if ROI wants to keep up with the rest of the digital marketing world. Unfortunately, the training team is only comprised of people who haven’t worked in client services in years, if at all, and aren’t equipped to develop the kind of training necessary to the ongoing education of client services.
For a relatively small agency in an industry that changes at a breakneck pace, change at ROI is shockingly slow. When change does eventually happen, it’s often too little too late. Senior management frequently struggles with ‘paralysis of analysis’, which is coupled with a reluctance to communicate to the company what issues are being discussed, or if they consider things issues at all. There were many instances during my time there where there were widespread issues significantly impacting employee morale, but senior management kept us on an information diet about what solutions they were discussing until things were completely finalized…often months or even a year later. I definitely don’t expect for senior management of a company to communicate every discussion to the underlings, but by keeping us in the dark on these big decisions, it robs them of the opportunity for employees to contribute to that ongoing conversation and propose solutions or ideas that might work better.
A big emphasis is put on the fact that senior management regularly has open office hours that employees can attend to share feedback or ideas, which is very generous of them to offer. However, at ROI being positive is highly valued and highly rewarded. Senior management frequently encourages feedback but based on how they respond it seems they really only want positive feedback. There have been many instances of employees giving senior management really smart, constructive feedback, only for that employee to be labelled as a negative person, which is almost always a death sentence for your advancement at ROI. Because of this, most employees feel more comfortable sharing constructive feedback as a group, but doing so has resulted in negative, defensive reactions from senior management. They really push for direct, one-on-one feedback, but that really doesn’t take into consideration the power discrepancy between them and an IC (or even middle managers). Unfortunately, you really can’t say you value feedback if you really only listen to positive feedback and set up your feedback channels to discourage constructive feedback.
This all speaks to a larger issue about the lack of trust and respect senior management has for ICs, which has been driving employee retention issues that have been increasing at an alarming rate. You’ll see in a lot of reviews on here that you frequently feel treated like you’re being babysat, and that’s extremely true. It really wasn’t until I moved on to a different environment where I’m trusted and treated like an adult that I grasped the full extent of the issue. Overloaded portfolios and employees being stretched thin is a well documented issue, but the hard work that goes into that is rarely acknowledged. Management frequently touts employee recognition programs like NPS awards and High Fives as evidence of a positive environment, but they’re ultimately hollow pats on the back that drive a culture of superficial, forced positivity that only continues to breed low morale and exacerbate employee churn.
