What is the hiring process like at Backroads?

Backroads is undoubtedly a great place to work, and for many reasons—starting with the people. I’ve had the chance to meet truly fascinating and passionate individuals from all over the world. The company’s diversity and international vibe are things I absolutely love. Another big plus is the active culture—there’s always someone heading off on an adventure, and it’s easy to join in if you’re up for it. Some of my coworkers are real gems: hardworking, incredibly smart, and deeply committed to Backroads. Overall, the atmosphere is relaxed and enjoyable, making it a pleasure to be part of the team.

Backroads—or what it has become in recent years—fails to value its dedicated employees who genuinely love their jobs and the company. Their focus on growth and profit seems to overshadow their care for the people and proper management. Communication is abysmal, and management in some departments is downright terrible, with extremely high turnover (some employees don’t stay longer than a few months). Despite several coworkers experiencing burnout within weeks of each other, management took no meaningful action. They constantly preach transparency but have no problem lying to your face and exploiting your patience and goodwill. Some managers are notorious for micromanaging yet are never confronted about it, and thus keep driving their team to burnout without facing the slightest consequences. These problems are consistently swept under the rug, and if you attempt to address them, you’ll either be dismissed outright or have your concerns minimized. It’s an okay place to work if you’re willing to tolerate the downsides, which boil down to poor organization and seriously flawed management. Unfortunately, many managers lack the necessary skills or training to lead effectively, making the experience even more frustrating for employees. Backroads promotes internal growth and hiring, but the truth is that this is nearly impossible without prior experience on the field. The recruitment process is extremely vague and long (3/4 months on average for a non-manager position), and the feedback doesn’t feel genuine. I know for a fact that many people get in through connections, often at the expense of more deserving and qualified candidates.

Backroads is undoubtedly a great place to work, and for many reasons—starting with the people. I’ve had the chance to meet truly fascinating and passionate individuals from all over the world. The company’s diversity and international vibe are things I absolutely love. Another big plus is the active culture—there’s always someone heading off on an adventure, and it’s easy to join in if you’re up for it. Some of my coworkers are real gems: hardworking, incredibly smart, and deeply committed to Backroads. Overall, the atmosphere is relaxed and enjoyable, making it a pleasure to be part of the team.

Backroads—or what it has become in recent years—fails to value its dedicated employees who genuinely love their jobs and the company. Their focus on growth and profit seems to overshadow their care for the people and proper management. Communication is abysmal, and management in some departments is downright terrible, with extremely high turnover (some employees don’t stay longer than a few months). Despite several coworkers experiencing burnout within weeks of each other, management took no meaningful action. They constantly preach transparency but have no problem lying to your face and exploiting your patience and goodwill. Some managers are notorious for micromanaging yet are never confronted about it, and thus keep driving their team to burnout without facing the slightest consequences. These problems are consistently swept under the rug, and if you attempt to address them, you’ll either be dismissed outright or have your concerns minimized. It’s an okay place to work if you’re willing to tolerate the downsides, which boil down to poor organization and seriously flawed management. Unfortunately, many managers lack the necessary skills or training to lead effectively, making the experience even more frustrating for employees. Backroads promotes internal growth and hiring, but the truth is that this is nearly impossible without prior experience on the field. The recruitment process is extremely vague and long (3/4 months on average for a non-manager position), and the feedback doesn’t feel genuine. I know for a fact that many people get in through connections, often at the expense of more deserving and qualified candidates.

Great community. The company allows you to learn a great skillset for the industry.

It's a huge red flag that Backroads seems to accept the turnover in their office staff as just the nature of the industry and appears not even to begin to question their management. The unilateral way of ruling the executive team has put in place, is often short sighted and protects their own interests, not their staff. Propped up by excellent hiring and training, they have managed for years to get by on slotting highly capable individuals into key roles, but then burning them out with workloads, deadlines, and expectations that are quite frankly disrespectful. When these individuals ask for help, they get nothing, at best, or a guilt trip, at worst, and with few exceptions, they leave prematurely; only then do their roles get split or obtain additional support/resources. As the company has grown, these highly capable and experienced individuals are becoming too few for the number of roles that turn over, leading to a deterioration of workplace quality that is often manifested and measured through surveys, yet they care only about their bottom line. There seems to be very little logic as to who the favorites are, but performance certainly does not seem to be the highest priority. With regards to leaders, a very twisted marking system has been set up where guests score the leaders thinking said leaders will never see the feedback directly, when it actually gets sent straight to their mail box. The scoring system itself is based on likability rather than actually evaluating if leaders are good at their jobs. All the while Backroads prefers for leaders not to mention this yet pride themselves on transparency. The result is harmful attacks on the leaders’ morale, rather than constructive feedback. The company loves using buzz words of empathy, radical candor, and being feedback based, to pretend that they have a caring and supportive company culture, but it is not something that matters, never acknowledging issues employees bring forward, with growth and profit being far and away their greatest values. Upper management is totally out of touch, existing in an insular bubble that quashes any criticism that they get wind of (this despite claiming that there will be no negative consequences to including one's name on the yearly employee survey instead of submitting anonymously). They continue, whether delusionally or manipulatively, to act as though employees should feel lucky to get what they give while continuing to be underpaid and undervalued. Loyalty does not exist as they try to create a "big happy family" atmosphere while on their end they show time and time again that they see their staff as easily replaceable, squeezing people out if they don't guzzle the Kool-Aid. Furthermore, they have no qualms behaving in illegal manners across various payrolls, in an attempt to pay their employees at rebait. They engage in considerable gaslighting regarding pay, throwing nice-looking numbers around while keeping details opaque. On top of mediocre pay and complicated payment structures, numerous employees (a startling proportion of those who do the work to check) have managed to reclaim significant unpaid wages after investigating their pay slips. It is difficult not to say that Backroads has a distinctly toxic company culture.

Amazing co-workers, Seriously. Regional travel, Interesting and refreshing interview process. If you land an interview without an internal referral, congratulations. It is extremely rare.

2 week Training is intense. Cramming an insane amount of information into your brain (most of it doesn't sink in) and expecting you to just 'get it' right off the bat. This company intentionally over-hires. SO they will let GREAT employees (who would likely be long term) go without much thought. Beware if you are hired later in the season. Lack of diversity. No health benefits (despite having a very physically active, field-based job where likelihood of injury occuring is high) unless you have completed 1 full year and a minimum # of hours. Company is headquartered in Berkeley, CA but company doesn't want to pay CA minimum wage so they set up 'headquarters' in SLC, UT, where their warehouse is located.

travel. fun, but easy to burn out. experience depends on what region you are based in.

company is becoming more corporate, less fun than it used to be and not sustainable, pay is not great plus no benefits, elevated positions are not compensated properly for amount of work.