‘What the hell?’: Gen Z CEO Kyle Hunt responds to claims his business has been ‘exposed’
A 25-year-old CEO has called out claims he has been “exposed” over a rating of his successful business.
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A young Aussie CEO has responded to claims he has been “exposed” because of how his business is rated online.
Kyle Hunt, 25, is the CEO of the Health Care Providers Association (HCPA), a successful consultancy business.
Glassdoor is an online platform where people who claim to be former or current employees of businesses can leave reviews and share their experiences.
An account online that has since been deleted but was called ‘Kyle Hunt Exposed’, recently pointed out that HCPA only had a 4.3 rating out of 5 on Glassdoor.
However, since being trolled over the ranking, current staff have left reviews, increasing the rating to 4.4.
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The business has 33 reviews on the platform. One employee rated it five stars and said there were “no cons” to working there.
Another rated it one star and said it was a poor workplace because of “favouritism” and managers who don’t know enough about the sector.
Someone else who gave the business one star claimed there were “plenty of parties” but, ultimately, you were sold a career dream that didn’t come true.
Another gave it a five-star review and claimed the business offered “great salaries” and endless work opportunities.
The contrast in reviews created an average of 4.3 at the time the TikTok video was made.
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Mr Hunt has said he found someone making a social media account to draw attention to his company’s Glassdoor ranking “disheartening”, to say the least.
He said the initial response to the TikTok account was just confusion from his team working with him.
“My staff members were messaging me, like, ‘what the hell?’” the CEO told news.com.au.
Mr Hunt also jumped online to defend himself and pointed out that the average for a consultancy business on the platform is 3.7 out of 5 stars, so his business is still above average.
He also added that he understands some team members can be “disgruntled” and that he tries his “hardest to make everyone happy” in the organisation.
“I look after my team, my friends and my customers extremely well,” he said.
Mr Hunt said he wanted to speak out about the claims because he doesn’t want his reputation tarnished, but he also understands why people might doubt the idea that he runs a happy workplace.
“I think in these current times, we are living in workplaces that suck. Especially the bosses, and the only thing bringing workplaces together are co-workers,” he said.
The 25-year-old said he wants to be the exception to that rule and tries to be a boss that creates a positive workplace culture.
“I am the boss and that helps the workplace be a good time,” he said.
Mr Hunt said people might find that hard to “grasp” because poor workplace culture is often the norm in Australia.
“I think with younger companies, the cultures are better, but the corporate businesses are rough and have zero budget for culture. As long as the revenue is coming through the door, they don’t care,” he said.
“Some businesses don’t care about it and create a clinical work environment almost like you’re working at the morgue.”
Mr Hunt is all about the culture. This quarter alone, he has a pub crawl planned, a day out where his team will go visit multiple waterfalls, and he organises weekly games for everyone to have fun.
“We do two or three things a week: lunches, games, riddles, we might play basketball,” he said.
The young CEO has recently been hiding an elf around the office with a note attached to him. Whoever finds the elf first gets whatever is on the note, most recently an employee on a full day of massages.
Mr Hunt said that, while you can’t make everyone happy, the company has a “relatively high retention rate” and said that is because there’s an awesome culture with competitive salaries.
“At the end of the day, people want career progression and to be paid more, and the culture stuff is an added bonus,” he explained.
Even though he makes so much time for culture and fun in the office, Mr Hunt said the team always hits their KPIs because they’ll actually get rewarded when they do.
“Everyone treats it as their own business in a way,” he said.
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Originally published as ‘What the hell?’: Gen Z CEO Kyle Hunt responds to claims his business has been ‘exposed’