page

account executive

bookkeeper

user experience designer

route driver

Lee Enterprises

I started working at the Lee Design Center in the summer of 2021, but if I knew then what I know, I wouldn't have bothered applying. It is a toxic work environment with unrealistic expectations for its staff. I can't tell if management is so burned out that they have grown delusional, or if they are so delusional that they don't understand how they are burning out their own staff. 

Lee Enterprises has around 70 newsrooms that we work with on a daily basis, but only a handful of full-time designers are scheduled to work each day. A typical shift includes five to six sections assigned to a designer for about 20 to 30 pages. Because our deadlines are staggered, designers usually have sections assigned to them that have deadlines within about an hour of one another, if not less time. In order to avoid missing deadline, designers have to work around the clock to get as many pages to press early.

Approving a single page, however, is excruciatingly laborious because of the vast amount of hoops and hurdles they have designers jump through. The editors provide local and wire content for a page and mark it ready in an online database. The designer then designs a page based on that content. Then the page is sent back to the editor who can either send it to press, or send it back to the design center for what they call "corrections." These corrections, however, are usually petty changes that don't address any mistakes made by the designer. If there are errors, it’s almost always in the copy provided by the editor. So when an editor marks a page content ready, the content is only sort of ready and will likely need copy editing fixes that the editor failed to make before sending it to the designer in the first place.

After the corrections are completed, the page then has to go to a second review stage and must be approved by a different member of the design center before it goes to press. This process alone captures the impractical approach Lee has taken with its design center as it takes far too long to approve pages because of how much input the editors have. But if that wasn't enough, there's more:

The slugs for content that the editors provide aren't always accurate, which means you have to contact the editor over slack, then wait until the slug is corrected. Because Lee has not standardized anything, designers have to format each of the unique styles for the newsrooms they are assigned. This even includes national agate because some editors want their agate to look differently than the rest. Lee is even allowing editors to instruct designers how to design pages even though our editors lack basic design knowledge and it completely undermines our staff. It is common for editors to tell designers exactly how they want a page to look only to send the page back for "corrections" because they changed their mind. Lee also does not have a content deadline for the editors, meaning they can and will wait until minutes before deadline before providing all of the copy to the designer. In professional terms, this would be called: setting one up to fail

During all of this, Lee expects designers to stay in contact with each of their editors over slack, communicate with the staff, keep track of the time they are spending on each section and if all of this wasn't enough, they also want us to send a summary of our day at the end of a stressful shift in what they call a night note. The night note is supposed to act as a log for the problems we run into, but in the months I have been here, not one change has been made to address our problems.

There is a fundamental problem at Lee Enterprises. They are still attached to print. At a time when every newspaper around the world is transitioning to a future without print, Lee is clinging to the past. They set up their design center to work for the editors instead of with the editors, making it substantially more difficult than it ever needed to be. The editors make selfish demands without taking into account our circumstances and without any consequence. We miss deadline every day at multiple newsrooms which is driving up debt. The editors are mostly responsible for this mess, but Lee Enterprises management is also to blame for allowing this to happen.

The designer center staff is at historically low numbers, and yet, the system Lee has created throws its own designers under the bus each day. Lee Enterprises has created both a toxic and abusive work environment. Stay away at all costs.


*Review email and voice messages and take care of immediate concerns; review scheduled appointments and confirm as necessary; review advertisements as published day prior to ensure accuracy; review job campaigns to ensure delivery of advertisement as scheduled. 

Analyze varied business products, as researching their websites, products and services helps to understand their business; establish appointment; prepare presentation based on their likely needs.

Go on sales calls; share presentation/information; present options, prices; listen to decision maker to ensure their needs are met; answer objections; ask for sale, receive sale; confirm sale. 

If not closed, establish follow-up sales meeting. 

Review meeting; research and analyze outcome. 

If sold, deliver advertisement specifics to advertising design team. Follow-up as advertisement proof is complete. Gain approval; begin ad campaign. Maintain close eye on run dates and develop relationship with advertiser by phoning to follow-up on success of advertisement. 

If not sold, review and continue researching the business needs; request advertisement designers to develop spec advertisement based on initial meeting as well as research. Develop new proposal to include follow-up information from first meeting as well as new ideas. 

Coinciding with appointments, continue seeking advertising opportunities for new accounts, those not currently running, and other business leads for yet unknown accounts. Always prospecting. Always selling. Always determining a different approach option for those seeking new and cutting edge; maintaining steady advertisement momentum for those conservative advertisers - with subtle insertions of new advertisement opportunities. 

*I continually learn how to work with people; use different approaches; developing relationships while maintaining a positive attitude. 

*Large management staff/team; always assisting in sales, always generating new programs and campaigns.

*Workplace culture constantly in change, as we are a busy, developing company; advertising staff encompassed of a variety of different people who share commonality in team building as well as individuality in working with our clients.

*I enjoy all aspects of my job and desire to maintain employment in the sales industry, long-term.

*Most enjoyable part of my job is seeing the satisfaction of achieved goals for a customer and their business. Helping a customer be successful; if they are successful in the campaign, I have been successful in my job.

Main job function is working collections for advertising accounts for the company’s newspapers. The company has outsourced almost everything else so they expect you to sit on the phone all day and call on past due accounts. This is a regional finance center so you’ll be working for a newspaper that’s several states and timezones away. The company has centralized everything and payment processing is done offsite by a separate company, so errors happen often. If a payment gets lost, misplaced or misapplied, good luck getting a solid answer from anyone. Invoicing is outsourced now, too, so you have control over almost nothing. The accounting aspect of the job is a separate position, so if you have questions on a payment, need a refund, or need help reconciling payments on an account, expect to wait a few days before you get an answer. 

There’s little to no training and you’re basically on your own after the first week. Management tends to get annoyed when you have questions and generally tells you to figure it out yourself (and then tell them the outcome once you do). Don’t expect a raise because they don’t give them. Management just sees you as a body and doesn’t have any regard for you as a person. You’ll never know if you’re doing a good job because they only bring up what things you do wrong. Management micromanages you and sits over your shoulder until you do what they say. Both employees and management gossip about others and complain about almost everything. Certain co-workers have no regard for others and make working in the office unbearable. Several people in the office have complained of headaches/ constantly feeling ill due to the old building and mold in the ceilings, but management dismisses it and doesn't do anything to fix it. This position has high turnover. Three people have left in the past month, and one person hired quit before they even started. Avoid this company at all costs. 



A typical work day is very busy answering calls on missed papers, payments, stops for vacations, starting new accounts, sending emails, and problem solving. I've learned a lot about newspapers that i didn't know like there is more to newspapers than reporters and writers. There are a lot of other people that make up the team for a newspaper to work. Like my position as a customer care representative, advertising side of the business is where a lot of the business comes from and behind the scene where the paper is printed. The management is awesome, they deal with a lot of issues and get the job done by calling customers back and resolving an issue or just answering questions that customer are concerned about. They answer hundreds of emails a day and still manage to answer the representative's questions that need to be answered. My co-workers are hard workers a well and get there jobs done by answering calls all day and problem solving any issues that need to be resolved. Everyone works well together. Without each other we would not be able to get our work done. The hardest part of my job is when i have a really upset customer over a payment issue or delivery issue and I do everything in my power to handle the issue on my own. If i cannot handle the issue after exhausting all my options then this is when email my supervisors or talk to them to see if they have any resolutions that i haven't thought of myself. The most enjoyable part of my day is at the end of a conversation with a customer that they are please with my services to them and that i have made them happy at the end of the call.

The company centralized accounting functions so the Regional Finance Center operates for 10-15 newspaper publications across the country; this job is based at the Lincoln Journal Star. Centralize = downsize.  Some of the publications would typically have 2-3 people working on them but here only have 1 person, so the workload is almost impossible. Many things have been outsourced or automated. Duties are inconsistent among each publication, each having different expectations of accounting personnel than another.

There’s no training. You’re given a crash course by management and then shuffled among the other employees to actually train you and then left to fend for yourself. If you have a question or concern, you’re more likely to get an answer or help from a fellow employee than a manager. 

Management is terrible. They are clueless on how many things work and often rely on their employees to either train them on things or train new employees because they’re too lazy or just don’t know how to do it. Expectations are inconsistent among employees and some are given more tasks than others. They tell you one thing but then turn around and change it. 

Pay is low and there are no raises. They don’t do 90 day or annual reviews and make up excuses when asked about it. This is a high turnover position and they hire basically anyone. It’s typically a team of 8-9 people and 5 people quit so far this year. 

The company is pretty generous when it comes to time off and the benefits are decent. But the job itself and dealing with management isn’t worth it. 


I was a software developer for Lee Enterprises. I cannot stress enough how kind and encouraging the management and staff were. Honestly the best team I've worked with in terms of feeling like there was a genuine connection, and concern for me as an employee. 

The work was rewarding, challenging, and not micro-managed. Really open-ended development stack, and freedom to develop solutions as you saw fit. From a developer standpoint, it was probably one of the best combination of job aspects you could hope for in this field. 

The benefits were alright. Health benefits were a bit on the low end, but it was hard as you got your benefits offered nationwide from a provider based in the Midwest. So very much a "one size needs to fit all" situation. PTO was exceedingly generous, with no stress or pressure around using it. 

That being said, the issue at Lee is the same as the News industry as a whole. Uncertain future outlook hurting morale among the staff. Reputation suffers internally and externally as acquisitions are restructured and you see turnover & layoffs. If you comb through the other reviews, you'll see much of that mentioned. It's unfortunately, but largely undeserved to be pinned to Lee specifically. The company is facing a changing environment, and attempting to adapt in the process. 

Really a shame to see from a company I REALLY enjoyed being a part of. I do hope they find footing in this new digital news era. 

The people here were great to work with. They worked with me when I absolutely needed them to, they even bring out little gifts to employees throughout the year as pick me up's which I thought was really nice, no other company has done that. However, the job is corporate so there is a required AHT to meet of 4:30, a hold time of 90 seconds, it feels like every other call center, in that the dollar is the bottom line, instead of having the interest of the customers in mind, so you are always trying to explain price increases that are outrageous, but it still has its struggles with the field partners not doing their job mostly because they do not have enough support, so you keep telling customers the same thing over and over again which after a while feels like a lie to get them off the phone.. The systems are outdated and are in serious need of being updated while they are working on them, they need to implement them. The website for customers is not customer or employee friendly, and customers cannot view their previous payments, get confirmation #'s for payments made or print out a copy of receipts, which is really bad for businesses who are required to have these for accounting. 

This company is being horribly miss handled by corporate. They continue to lay talented people off, only to hire inexperienced, unsuspecting new personnel to burn and churn. Resulting in the loss of reliability and trust between Lee and their employees and clients. If you have integrity, it will be difficult to work here.  Especially knowing how they over promise and under-deliver what is promised to the client. The problem is not sales or the staff attempting to carry out the promises, it's Lee laying people off and new people not knowing where to begin. The new person just won't have a clue what has been promised or if it is being delivered until it's too late. Or they are overworked with the threat of being laid off until the pressure is too much and they quit. Accounts fall through the cracks all the time. I know the sales reps honestly do the best they can considering they are working for a dinosaur that can't get enough to feed its top-heavy debt environment. Middle management is so busy blaming the staff under them for their lack of knowledge that you may get thrown under a bus and never see it coming. So, if you still don't, believe me, drink the cool aid...

•	Provides daily direction and communication to employees to ensure calls are answered in a timely, efficient and knowledgeable manner. 
•	Shares responsibility for improving methods of internal operations and external customers. Assist the Customer Care Operations Manager with troubleshooting issues and concerns from properties, customers and call Center Representatives. Responsible for a team of 10 (+)
•	Creates a high-quality work environment that motivates team members to perform at their highest level. Knowledgeable about service recovery, distribution/circulation methods, and promotional programs. 
•	Assist the Manager with daily operations that include processes development, analyses of calls and implementation of training. Responsible for hiring call center employees.
•	Responsibilities are but not limited to: design/generate reports and spreadsheets upon demand, analyze call data and operate systems within the call center to ensure the continuous flow of operations.
•	Observe CSR for trending issues and spot check for accuracy according to the guidelines of the Call Center. Provides continual evaluation of processes and procedures.

Lee was not the worst company I have worked for but it was nevertheless a soulless, cold operation. My peers, team, and supervisors were unfriendly to the point of being downright rude. It's true that business is business but they expected workers to go "above and beyond" while treating us like cogs in the dying journalism machine. Expecting the designers to be the ones to "catch every issue" is preposterous, as the designers are monstrously overworked and have to juggle an insane amount of content. When there are 20 employees working on one project, and an issue goes through undetected to print, the higher-ups love to pass the blame to the lower rungs on the team. I've never seen a management person take responsibility for overloading their team with work due to their poor project management skills. Such is the nature of the game though, and we'll see how they'll fare once print media lurches into obsolescence, while they steadfastly refuse to adapt and evolve.

To summarize, Lee Enterprises is the Dodo. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Page 3 salaries reported	$37,333 per year
Account executive 3 salaries reported	$56,000 per year
Bookkeeper 2 salaries reported	$27.09 per hour
User experience designer 1 salary reported	$106,978 per year
Route driver 1 salary reported	$500 per week

Working at Lee Enterprises: Company Overview and Reviews

Lee Enterprises

Lee Enterprises Ratings

Popular jobs at Lee Enterprises

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected