Great team individuals but poor leadership + lack of structure
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
My team is great.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Everything above. I will not stay with Klarna for long anymore. The way they conducted the Klarna 10% layoff made me (and my team) think, next time maybe I will be the one who is dismissed, because Klarna does not care about you as an individual at all. That's what they proved with this.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
- If you do a layoff, have the decency to better communicate to the "leftovers". Managers should not hide behind that and accuse employees for sending a shit storm towards management like it was done in the managements official explanation of that layoff. Very poor leadership.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Never was good because most leaders in Customer Support / Merchant Support department lead by fear, threatening people e.g. with changing their contract with less vacation days.
Kommunikation
There is a big lack of communication of change. Good corporations know how to take their teams with them in times of change - Klarna shows so many times that they just decide things, not explaining to the people involved, e.g. when changing everybody's job title from "senior" to "associate" and "manager" to "senior" - they downgraded everybody without explaining why.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
Depends which team you are. Overall Merchant Support all team members in Munich and Cologne are amazing - they really are a treasure and always made my day, despite all the obvious Klarna shortcomings.
BUT: middle managers I cannot name here are snaky and talk about your teams with other leads within the domain in Stockholm. There is a feeling of "Sweden against Munich", which is perceived toxic by most of my team members.
Work-Life-Balance
Have seen worst. But still not good at all since you as a lead receive calendar invites for late in the afternoon, although you were working from 7.30am. You can decline them - but then you will have to argue with e.g. your competence group lead.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Managers are not experienced in customer support at all - which makes it difficult to discuss topics sometimes. But overall good lead.
Nevertheless, as seen above, management in general is leading by fear and creates a toxic environment, especially for us "leftovers" after the horribly executed 10% Klarna layoff lately.
Interessante Aufgaben
Not really. Day in day out the same. They say in interviews that you have the possibility to have side projects and to drive your own career.. all bla bla to catch your interest. Reality is if you want to push for improvements and are trying to drive your development, you are pushed back. Read some other reviews here and you will receive confirmation - this is not just my opinion here.
Gleichberechtigung
All just "sound and smoke" - Klarna claims to be "smoooth" and a modern employer. But the employer branding is so shitty that I wonder why so many people fall for their fake harmony behavior (that includes me).
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
Only seen a few. Klarna had no respect and just put them in the 10% Klarna layoff, although some of them worked for Klarna for 8+ years.
Arbeitsbedingungen
As seen above. The equipment is good, though, but nothing special nowadays.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
Klarna celebrates "Green Day & Week" but on the other hand they give you Lieferando vouchers to order food with lots of packaging material.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
Really bad salary. And I don't mean for me personally - I mean in comparison to the average of a Customer Support Agent, Senior and Lead in Munich. They sell you so called "RSUs" which is a kind of share of Klarna. BUT: Klarna is not participating in the stock market (and with their obvious financial difficulties they most likely never will) - so this "offer" is just fake money where on top you have to pay taxes for.
Image
Very bad employer branding in Germany, Sweden and USA.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
See above. They claim you can have your "irregular career path", but translated that means, they can put you in any role they want to - even if you are not willing to do it.