Anyone that says Management is helpful must be one of their drinking buddies, married to one, or one of them.
Management Structure: Seriously, good luck figuring out who you actually report to. There is no type of flow chart to follow. No real answer from anyone other than "Well it depends on what the issue is. It could be person A or person B."
Best I can tell, it goes CEO > Managers > Supervisors > Level 3 > Shift Leads (Baby sitters) > Level 2 > Level 1. Now this is only a loose interpretation.
Reviews: Reviews are like nothing that I have ever seen before. Usually it will be a Shift Lead that will walk through your review. The review consists of some basic thing. Your attendance, ticket, chat, or call count, ratings, and how many times you've been written up.
Write ups, by the way, are how the company chooses to correct employee error instead of training or peer review. And write ups do not go through HR until after the employee has signed it. If you refuse to sign it, then you are considered insubordinate.
Nothing in the review covers your personal work ethic or your actual effectiveness at doing your job. Nor is how to improve yourself covered. Then comes the fun part, the raise negotiation. There is none. The review comes to the Shift Lead with your raise predetermined by HR. There is no negotiation involved. No pleading your case for something more than a token $0.50 per hour raise. No mention that you show up early every day, that you have the least fail tickets, that you are a fast learner, or that you have never had a write up.
Promotions: Don't expect a raise when you get promoted. The favorite thing to do here is to promote you during or shortly after your review. They figure you already got a raise so why get another one. Promotions usually come with a schedule change. They expect you to change your schedule on a whim. If you have a family this is next to impossible to do. At least 90% of people in L2 or higher positions in the company do not have families. Management seems to like it this way. They can change your schedule as they deem fit. Promotions are totally based on how well you have gotten into the inner circle of friends or drinking buddies. None of it is based on your actual performance or previous job history. The running joke here is "If you have management skills outside of Hostgator, then you must be a Chat Tech."
I have come from a corporate environment and I have to say that this is the most non-productive company I have ever been at. There is no real delegation. No real job descriptions. Policies are reactionary.
