|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Jan 24th, 2021 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
Project Manager
|
Austin, TX
|
|
Great Company to Learn and Grow with!
|
|
- Room for career growth and change was a huge pro. I started working at GPS as an admin and within a few months I was able to express interest and move into a Project Management role. The CEO of the company is really open to helping you develop the skills necessary to help you grow your career at GPS,
- Work Hard, Play Hard mentality. This company isn't about wasting any time. Work hard for the clients, and then play hard to celebrate big wins.
- The clients are awesome! I loved working with all of our small business clients and getting to know them on a personal level. Each win for a client, is a win for the whole company!
- This company is committed to maintaining an awesome company culture filled with fun activities, social events, and happy hours. I also really love that there is a philanthropic focus with Geek Powered Gaming.
|
- When I was there, the company was having some growing pains with putting new processes and HR protocols into place as the company continued to grow rapidly. I am sure many of those processes have been worked out since my time there.
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
0.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
5.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Dec 22nd, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
Web Designer
|
Austin, TX
|
|
Driven Team, High Expectations
|
|
Working at Geek Powered Studios was a great experience with a lot of very driven team members. When help is needed, the team and CEO are willing to step in and provide training and assistance. Organization at the company improved dramatically during my time there. Standards of excellence are very high with a huge focus on data-driven strategy, so there are a lot of growth opportunities.
|
The workload is high, and team members are expected to take on a lot of client work. While team members were given a lot of freedom, there weren't many established standards for performance and the team was expected to take the initiative when it came to coming up with ideas instead of having templates and standardized strategies to pull from.
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
0.0
|
NEUTRAL
|
0.0
|
NO_OPINION
|
0.0
|
4.0
|
2.0
|
4.0
|
5.0
|
3.0
|
3.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
Continue creating trainings and documenting strategies.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Jun 12th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
Senior PPC Specialist
|
Austin, TX
|
|
False Meritocracy
|
|
Some co-workers are talented and really want to help clients.
You'll probably get an amazing job after leaving here.
|
There is no leadership
There is no pricing strategy
There is no client management policy
There's a massive lack of manpower. You will be over worked and under appreciated.
There's an assumption that everyone, except leadership, is fully replaceable with 0 loss of performance.
Skills and productivity don't matter. Befriend the owner and you have carte blanche to be mediocre + blame others for your shortfalls.
Clients will walk over you. There's no support for runaway clients.
There's no room to grow your career. The client portfolio always expands but the team is shrinking by the quarter.
There's countless meetings and Friday Night Light style speeches about change and tackling geeky e-commerce companies. Nothing changes.
There's a 99% chance this review gets a snarky, well actually, reply. There's no accountability here. Everything and everyone else is to blame.
Radical candor isn't faithfully applied here.
This review is unique but the feedback not. There's been 0 iteration or improvement here for years.
The owner will take a portion of your new client commission.
You'll make less so the owners can get favors and trade.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
12.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
1.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
This company is the Hotel California of companies. Lots of promises but nothing changes. You pay for a mentor that you ignore. You recruit talent that you ignore. I told you everything you needed to succeed as an employee, and I was ignored. Why give more advice here for free?
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
May 14th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
Full Time Employee
|
Austin, TX
|
|
Best.Team.Ever.
|
|
I get to work with the best, most bad-a** group of people out there. We have a pretty tight knit group, and everyone seems to really respect each other. We do some cool work that I'm excited to be a part of.
It's been crazy since Covid, but the company has really tried to take care of us. We were given giftcards for groceries, paid grocery delivery memberships, and we have been working from since before the shelter mandates went into place. It wasn't even a question. It feels like our safety and wellbeing is a priority.
It was nice to have a company half day recently just because.
|
In a small company things aren't always as structured as they are in big corporations - which I suppose could be good and bad. Also part of small company life is that there isn't always somewhere to move up or into if you are looking to "move up the ladder."
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
1.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
3.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
More structured learning opportunities please!
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Mar 11th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
United States
|
USA
|
All bad reviews are still true
|
|
Good opportunity for growth if you have little experience
|
Company has a proven track record of not valuing employees.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
8.0
|
1.0
|
4.0
|
3.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
1.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
Treat your employees like people who have real lives outside of GPS
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "eng", "userJobTitle": "Operations Manager", "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 2560753, "responseDateTime": "2020-03-13T06:21:42.04", "translationMethod": null, "response": "You're right. People need to be valued and treated like they have lives outside of the office. That's why we have given our Geeks the autonomy to decide, based on their own workload, what time they want to come in and start each day. We've also expanded our work from home policy so that in addition to the three days per quarter that can be scheduled, the entire company works from home every Wednesday. We've also been putting a lot of work into our workload visibility and reporting so that we have a clearer picture of what each person has on their plate. There are exceptions of course, but our Geeks average about 45 hours each week.\n\nThe bottom line is that we can't do what do what we do without our team. It's because of them that we have been able to grow and accomplish some pretty amazing goals. In any workplace, we spend more time with each other that with our own families. And like families, we are all imperfect, but we try to do the right thing. I'm sorry that your experience here wasn't more positive, but I think that if you were to talk to our current Geeks you will find that they feel pretty good - and if they feel good so do we. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback to help us grow.", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Feb 23rd, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
United States
|
USA
|
A Lot Needs Fixing, Starting at the Top
|
|
*Personally, I've found great, well meaning people that are willing to help you succeed.
*If you're into it, you can play video games with others
*Depending on the 'circumstances', there are opportunities to learn new things.
*Great likable, geeky people to get to know
|
*A toxic environment where even the best question how much longer their tenure will be at work
*Panicky management, that react first, blame employees, and deal with the consequences later
*Lack of trust in the specialists
*Absurd workload issues due to lack of manpower, and amount of client hours
*Toxic environment stemming from the actual office, uncertainty, disorganization, and questionable decisions by upper management (not gonna bother listing them out, but there's a lot)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
13.0
|
2.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
There was an initial start to fixing what was wrong with this company a couple years ago. But a lack of
trust and empathy brought you back to ground zero again.
Everyone is flawed but if there's multiple reviews about the same issue over the years, something needs to be done and it has nothing to do with the employees.
An employee's exit is just as important as an employee's entrance.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Feb 19th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
Web Designer
|
United States
|
USA
|
The best company I've worked for so far
|
|
Honestly, this is the best company that I've worked for so far in my professional career.
- Workloads are reasonable so I almost always work 8 hours a day
- Management is communicative and sets realistic expectations
- Everyone here is very smart and the culture is awesome
- I learn a ton from my peers every day
- The company is always trying out new initiatives to help its employees grow within their career
|
The commute down South isn't great
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
1.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Feb 14th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
Web Designer
|
Austin, TX
|
|
Talented People & Engaging Work
|
|
I've been working at Geek Powered Studios for 6 months and I really enjoy the team work, communication and passion behind the projects we work on. From management to individual team members, everyone works together towards the common purpose of getting clients results.
I really love that this agency is data driven. Working with the many tools we have for analytics and A/B testing has allowed me to take my design to the next level and make calculated user experience decisions to drive results. I've learned a lot and grown professionally in my time at GPS and I'm excited about the direction the company is heading and all the opportunities we've been getting with bigger clients.
The work environment is friendly and the many team and project meetings help you feel like you're on the same page as team mates and clients. Also, the benefits are nice, snacks and drinks are provided and the company often has fun events.
|
Due to an increase in client opportunities there are some days when the workload is heavier. This being said, the work is fun and fulfilling.
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
1.0
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
5.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
Keep it up!
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Feb 14th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
United States
|
USA
|
They keep deleting reviews. How is this place still around?
|
|
When turnover is so high, you meet a lot of great + like-minded people. This doesn’t include any of the leadership team. Sometimes you can play video games.
|
Departments turn over every three months. Nepotism at its finest. Prideful micromanagement. All the negative reviews from years ago hold true. Questionable, racist clients. Please avoid at all costs.
|
|
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
12.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
It doesn’t matter, nothing will ever change.
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "eng", "userJobTitle": "CEO", "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 2544334, "responseDateTime": "2020-03-02T06:24:33.98", "translationMethod": null, "response": "Thanks for taking the time to leave a review. I\u2019m disappointed you had a bad experience. Every geek has a 15five they can complete every week that allows them an opportunity to bring up any concerns they have to their immediate supervisor or leadership. I also personally have an open door policy. In the weekly company meetings we also have allotted time for anyone to bring up concerns that we can openly address as a group. I\u2019m actively working with leadership to understand why someone would not take advantage of these opportunities.\n\nI do want to point out some inaccuracies in some of the statements you are making.\n\nDepartments do not turn over every three months. The average tenure at the company is 1 year and 3 months which is in-line with the industry average and the incredibly tight labor market right now. We obviously aren\u2019t striving for industry average and are having regular conversations with leadership to build a longterm plan for retention. This includes building in bonuses for company performance and rolling out a permanent work from home Wednesday initiative to break up the week. Our last 4 hires have been referrals which is very telling of the culture. Why would a current employee refer someone to work at Geek Powered if the environment is anything like you described? We agree with you that we have great people and the inconvenient truth is that people that aren\u2019t a fit have to be held accountable. We make every attempt to elevate geeks and help them improve their performance. When they don\u2019t this can be hard in a small office but its a disservice to everyone to keep team members that aren\u2019t living up to agreed upon expectations.\n\nNepotism? My wife works with me yes. I wouldn\u2019t have entertained the idea if I didn\u2019t think she would be able to do an excellent job and meet the same expectations I have for every other geek. She has 8 years of account management experience at a Fortune 500 company and has done a tremendous job improving our customer service. She also does a lot of work behind the scenes in addition to our account management duties to ensure that financials and billing are taken care of.\n\nQuestionable, racists clients? We take how clients interact with our employees seriously. In the past when there were issues we have reassigned the client to management and addressed the issue directly. We have not received any feedback or concern about any client regarding what you have described.\n\nPrideful micromanagement. We have very clear KPIs by client. If they aren\u2019t being met, other team members will get involved. Often times it\u2019s just making sure there is a game plan and that it\u2019s being executed. We have systems and processes in place so that every client\u2019s KPIs are being looked at and discussed daily as needed. Accountability is a big part of our culture. Everyone is also incredibly giving of their time and will always help one another. This has always been one of the best aspects of the company.\n\nWe operate in an industry that is literally changing everyday. We\u2019re constantly adapting to do what\u2019s best for our clients and our employees. Everyone has the ability to change. Best of luck to you.", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
|
|
|
private:geekpoweredstudios
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=822591
|
Feb 3rd, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
Geek Powered Studios
|
Specialist
|
Austin, TX
|
|
Yup, Still a Dumpster Fire. Don't even think of working here.
|
|
I can say that a number of the colleagues I had the pleasure to work with at GPS are some of the brightest minds and hardest working people in the digital marketing business. Unfortunately, they have also been the ones that have been driven out of the company involuntarily or by force. No one lasts longer than a year here. If you accept a job offer from GPS, don't think you'll be an exception.
|
Oh boy. Where to start. Every negative review from years past still ring true today. The company loves to recruit promising talent (especially at the entry level) with promises of career development, mentorship, video games, fun team outings, and the opportunity to work with some big name clients. They also try to be upfront about their poor Glassdoor rating during interviews, saying that they've put processes/software/consultants in place to make things better. Don't believe it for a second. The reality is, nothing has, or ever will change. Most of the people who get hired have more knowledge of digital marketing than the people who run the company. Once the people GPS hires start exercising their expertise, they become a threat to fragile egos who can't handle their own lack of digital marketing knowledge. (And then you can guess what happens next.)
The company recently moved to an old industrial office park that is no longer the cool looking one shown on their website. (They might want to take that down...it's false advertising).
Turnover/Burn out: Very real at this company. No one stays longer than a year. You get piled on with more and more work and management never listens even when it is crystal clear using hard, numerical data from the company's project management software that everyone is overburdened with hours of work, with the expectation to meet unrealistic (if not same-day) deadlines.
Clients: It's amazing how the company can attract some really impressive clients while continually retaining some of the worst ones. Employees continually go above and beyond to make things happen for these clients, only to have their work devalued by leadership/account management. Unreasonable/Unrealistic KPI's set by the client would automatically be agreed to by leadership without consulting the appropriate team (for example, promising that a video will go viral with millions of video views, with zero budget). Talk about being set up for failure.
Leadership: Lol. A joke. They constantly undermine the work of their employees. Campaigns that were heavily researched and took hours to build would mysteriously be turned off or have key components changed, without warning. And of course the people who set them up would get blamed for poor campaign performance because of it, and it ends up wasting clients a ton of money. New subscriptions to digital marketing and campaign optimization platforms are always being purchased as a silver bullet to "hack" campaign performance with "AI" and "machine learning". Online courses for "Get results quick" schemes by digital marketing quacks are purchased for the whole company's "continuing education". The list goes on and on. I wouldn't put it past them to require new employees to write positive Glassdoor reviews within the first 90 days.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
14.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
822591
|
Open
|
I would have to charge GPS a consulting fee for that. Sorry.
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "eng", "userJobTitle": "CEO", "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 2526100, "responseDateTime": "2020-02-17T07:51:08.56", "translationMethod": null, "response": "We really appreciate you taking the time to leave your review. Good or bad, we do want to hear what our employees have to say because that is how we grow and improve. In a perfect world, we would get this feedback in real time. We put the 15Five platform in place specifically for the purposes of obtaining weekly feedback from the team. The last one you submitted was on November 8 which adds up to 8 weeks that you just didn\u2019t bother to participate. Glassdoor reviews after the fact are fine for venting if that is the way you prefer to go, but an actual conversation might have been more productive. \n\nLet\u2019s unpack this. You mention workload and hard numerical data from our project management system. And on the one hand, you are right. We have a lot of work at any given time. We also understand that when new things get added in, it isn\u2019t always possible to get all things done. Our policy is to have open communication with the teams about which things take priority and which things can be moved. We try to proactively do this, but we aren\u2019t perfect and there are a lot of moving pieces. But we do ask for communication from our people to let us know when they have too much on their plate so that we can shift things around. The only thing we\u2019ve ever really stipulated on that is to let us know early in the day when we still have the ability to shift things around. Where we run into issues is when someone doesn\u2019t communicate, doesn\u2019t ask for help, and doesn\u2019t say that X, Y, and Z can\u2019t be completed until they are literally walking out the door with your computer shut down and backpack on, leaving us hanging with client deadlines. The same person who, when we are open for business from 8-5 regularly comes in between 9-9:30, takes long lunches, spends an excessive amount of time outside on the phone and skates out the door right at 5:00 90% of the time. These are factors that make it hard to justify the argument of not enough time. What part of that says \u201cgoing above and beyond\u201d? Again, we aren\u2019t perfect, but this is a two way street. \n\nYou mention online courses and continuing education opportunities that weren\u2019t sufficient. If you thought they weren\u2019t up to par, why didn\u2019t you speak up or offer an alternative, or help train up other team members? Are we short handed? Yes. Especially in a specific department. However, when we hired two people you refused to help train them even though you were the subject matter expert. You have pointed out the flaws you perceive in leadership's ability to execute campaigns - so why wouldn\u2019t you help train new people in the method that you thought worked the best? The opposite happened - you told a new hire to their face that you didn\u2019t want to and shouldn\u2019t have to train them, leaving them feeling like they couldn\u2019t come to you for help. It shouldn\u2019t matter that they didn\u2019t report directly to you. With blended work teams, all managers help train and coach people who are on other teams. We all help each other. That you were in a leadership position, took that stance, and don\u2019t see an issue with it is a good indicator of why we are here. \n\nYou\u2019ve also mentioned clients. They are part of agency life and they are all different people with their own personalities and it is our job to figure out how to work with them. Even the difficult ones. With small businesses especially, the work we do for them is critical and can make or break their business. We take that seriously. Clients ask questions. And that doesn\u2019t mean that they are challenging your knowledge or trying to show you up as you so often said. They want to understand what we are doing and where their money goes and they have that right. Part of your job was to come to meetings prepared with data and strategies. You were supposed to lead the conversations. That didn\u2019t happen. Instead, you got defensive every time a client asked a question and even stormed out of a client meeting leaving your team member holding the bag. \n\nYes, we moved. We miss the old building too, but as you know the steep rent increase for a space that was too big for us didn\u2019t make fiscal sense. Moving to the new space kept us from needing to make cuts elsewhere that would have been even more unpopular. Thank you for the reminder that we need to change the photo on our website. But out of curiosity, why didn\u2019t you see this as an issue when you were leading the team that was in charge of our website? \n\nLook, there are things that we could have done better. We own it, even if it isn\u2019t always easy to hear. In this case, it\u2019s clear that neither side was getting what they wanted or needed from this relationship. But even though you decline to give us advice without a \u201cconsulting fee\u201d, let us give some advice to you: listen to feedback. We\u2019ve looked over all of the documentation from all of the conversations that we had with you during your tenure. We had the same conversations over and over. Time and again you chose to do things your way instead of the way we asked. Not once did you ever concede that there was something that you could have done better. It was always the fault of the company, the client, the software, the technology, anyone but you. You were so unwilling to hear feedback that when it came time for a performance improvement plan, you got up and stormed out of that meeting without hearing any of the things that we were trying to coach you on. We promoted you. We wanted you to succeed. We wanted you to be here long term. And we are honestly sorry it didn\u2019t work out. We wish you the best.", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Feb 21st, 2021 08:05PM
|
Geek Powered Studios
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