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Name and Shame. I will go first: Elements Brands (Charlotte, NC)

They are small E-Commerce company that buys small consumer brands and scales them. The majority of employees (sales, marketing, and accounting) work from home. They have a warehouse that fulfills all their orders and that is where I worked. The warehouse logistics team has been hemorrhaging talent throughout the year. Leadership does provide folks with the space to grow and make improvements to their departments. The downside is that starting pay isn’t terribly competitive and when you take on more responsibility and expand your role (something they explicitly state as an expectation in their job posts) they do not compensate for that. Executive leadership empowers toxic directors. Purchasing comes to mind, specifically. There is a great deal of manipulation and deception. Senior leadership will lie and gaslight people to get what they want. They will ask people to take on more responsibilities, promise a promotion “soon” and then fire them…


They are small E-Commerce company that buys small consumer brands and scales them. The majority of employees (sales, marketing, and accounting) work from home. They have a warehouse that fulfills all their orders and that is where I worked.

The warehouse logistics team has been hemorrhaging talent throughout the year. Leadership does provide folks with the space to grow and make improvements to their departments. The downside is that starting pay isn’t terribly competitive and when you take on more responsibility and expand your role (something they explicitly state as an expectation in their job posts) they do not compensate for that.

Executive leadership empowers toxic directors. Purchasing comes to mind, specifically. There is a great deal of manipulation and deception. Senior leadership will lie and gaslight people to get what they want. They will ask people to take on more responsibilities, promise a promotion “soon” and then fire them as soon as is convenient; only to crossload that persons work onto others or hire cheaper talent. It may come as no surprise that they cannot hire – let alone high end talent.

Half the staff has either left or been terminated. They have lost a ton of top talent, because they had options and moved on. Three out of four warehouse subdepartments are in free fall because the senior associates bolted for the door. They are not doing well as a business and have a terrible track record of underpaying their people and breaking promises. All the directors have contracts, specifically, because they have seen and been part of these practices and wish to protect themselves. Everyone else is “at will” and is at risk.

The reason this company hasn’t been put on blast on Indeed or Glassdoor – Is because they often use severance pay as a carrot to get terminated employees to sign gag orders not to disparage the company.

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