Frontiers reviews

2.7

33% would recommend to a friend

(564 total reviews)
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Kamila Markram

31% approve of CEO

31% positive business outlook

Frontiers has an employee rating of 2.7 out of 5 stars, based on 564 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Frontiers employee rating is 27% below average for employers within the Audiovisual y medios de comunicación industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

564 reviews
2.0
Jun 26, 2024

Fantastic mission, but company culture is dire

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Overwhelmingly the people are more intelligent, empathic and committed to the mission of the company than many other publishers. Truly remote with no expectation of office attendance. Really important mission of making science open.

Cons

The morale and culture has tanked over the last 18 months. As soon as the company's growth started to slow, immediately the blame was put on the staff on the front lines. They were just not working hard enough and needed to work harder! Then redundancies came and no pay rises in a cost of living crisis, shows staff are not valued. Manically trying to pry this back now they've realised this leads to significant exodus of talent which will impact the bottom line. 40hr work week, excluding breaks (norm is 9-5 with a paid lunch break, we're 8.30-5.30) means flexible working is difficult and by the end of the week many employees are mentally exhausted. A shorter week has been shown to be more productive. A previous reviewer mentioned unpaid overtime and the expectation of working at weekends- this is 100% the case in some teams, managers are expected to work until midnight on the final day of the month to push as many tasks as possible and ensure maximum performance against targets. Along with most of the recent reviews, the cons are lack of real leadership. There is a difference between being a dynamic company and adjusting approaches, and rushing releasing untested strategies or approaches which force you make constant U-turns or drop approaches after only a few weeks. Middle managers aren't trusted or empowered and the view is that the company is top-heavy with too many directors making responsibility unclear. Leadership don't take responsibility for their decisions, instead either gaslighting or just ignoring anything that doesn't align with their narrative. Leadership is not listening to the customers or the staff who talk to them everyday and evolving strategies or approaches, but instead sticking with the attitude that "it worked before so it'll work again".

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Frontiers Response
1y
It's great that you support our mission which is really important to us. We acknowledge your comments about morale - it has been a very tough year for everyone and we are committed to turning it around. To clarify, we operate a standard 40-hour work week that includes a paid lunch break and we never expect any employee to work overtime. Thanks for sharing your constructive advice and ideas for improvements - we will take them on board. Please do consider talking to your People Business Partner about how you can become involved in working groups on the projects you've mentioned.
2.0
Jun 19, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I was lucky enough to be part of a great team with highly capable individuals who could not deliver at their potential due to the lack of understanding of our job from management and senior management.

Cons

(Senior) Management - from poorly trained individuals to persons being rude for the sake of it (not just my experience reflects this) Lack of responsibility - just throwing the important decisions from one team to another taking months to end up with a decision. Lack of compassion and transparency - in the process of making redundant 600 people. Lack of accountability - I waited for 6 months the decision to be promoted, which was always postponed and in the end I was made redundant. Every time I was asking about it the manager of my team was blaming the senior manager, while the senior manager said he only heard about it once or twice in those 6 months. If you do the work for less money, great for them. Poor work-life balance for some teams, especially for those under manager level. Management and senior management taking decisions opposed to C-level guidance and once found out, asking the employee to re-do the work and blaming them for "not understanding" what was required even if in internal meetings it was clearly communicated that we are going against the recommendations. Management ready to complain about what you deliver, even if you stick to the brief from the stakeholder. Very poor understanding of stakeholder management. Hiding under the rug mentality all over the company.

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Frontiers Response
1y
Thank you for taking the time to share feedback with us. Your observations are noted, and we are very disappointed to hear about your experience with management. This is a key focus for us and we have just launched a new management training program to further develop skills for all of our people managers.
2.0
Jun 7, 2024

Great people, not so great Leadership

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- The people are fantastic - The company mission - Generous benefits - Fully remote working

Cons

- Toxic positivity - Deluded senior leadership - Long and outdated 40hr working week, they will claim that being fully remote allows for a flexible and healthy work life balance but when the working hours are 8:30 to 5:30, there's not much of the day left to utilise this flexibility! - The large scale recent layoffs - No pay review or bonus despite apparently being financially stable - Feels like a sinking ship, I hope I am wrong as the great people combined with the company mission *should* make this a brilliant place to work

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Frontiers Response
2y
Thank you for your comments. We take pride in fostering a mission-driven environment full of great people. Offering a good work-life balance is important to us: and like the majority of businesses, we operate a standard 40-hour work week. The redundancies were an incredibly difficult time, but it was a necessary action to ensure longevity and that we can continue on our mission that we are all so passionate about.
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Glassdoor has 633 Frontiers reviews submitted anonymously by Frontiers employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Frontiers is right for you.