Smoke and Mirrors - Manager, Corporate Equinox Employee Review

Equinox is a massively political enviornment that lacks leadership with vision. 1. The corporate offices are terrible. Very dark with no windows, cramped spaces, rather sterile. No recycling. No snacks (they put out a bowl of apples once a week and people fight over them as if they were starving animals). The company is moving to Hudson Yards but your space there is limited to a locker. You are to have no personal items on your workspace. The execs literally sit above you and look down on you, which means any birthday celebrations, or noise, or fun that existed under the radar is now over. 2. Employee culture is awful. People can be mean and catty. Everyone is always on edge. There's a huge emphasis on your appearance. There's a dress code that enforces gender stereotypes, as it was clearly made by an old white man. The dress code is strict and employees comment when you're not complying (not just your manager. your peers will call you out). There are no frequent. employee events (you'd assume team workouts would be a thing). 3. You can't use the gym whenever you want. There are blackout hours in the evenings and weekends. It says in the handbook that you can go workout during the day, but your team will look down on you. Even if you manage to sneak down during the day, you feel like yo'ure being watched because the gym is staffed by coworkers. It's very uncomfortable. 4. Your vacation time is limited to 10 days and that doesn't grow with tenure. 10 days is barely enough time to visit your family let alone travel internationally. There are no flexible work hours. This company LOVES butts in seats, so say goodbye to any dreams of being able to work from home if your plumber is coming to fix a leak. 5. This company has no follow through. Once a product is launched, it's forgotten. Oh, and that launch was rushed so only the minimum viable product was launched. The company doesn't staff enough resources to maintain the million things it's doing or puts out. This goes for all physical products and services. Digital products are even worse. UX design is almost non existent. So many things are broken. For example, try booking a spa appointment for a particular service without any preference in location or technician. The results 9 times out of 10 come back as unavailable. Then internally it will be communicated that all spa bookings happen over the phone so why invest in the digital product. Well, maybe if you invested at all into making something better...... 6. Executive leadership either has no vision or has a complete inability to communicate that vision. 7. Executive leadership seems to be really uneducated in any contemporary business practices in a digital world. They talk out of both sides of their mouths, and even worse - they're out of touch with their employees. 8. The company is run on fear. The president of the company has literally said that the job is life or death. Sales goals are put first above all else. Member experience, retention, long term success.... all doesn't matter because a sales goal needs to be hit RIGHT NOW. Every day at the company feels like crippling anxiety due to sales numbers. The gross irony is that this company is extraordinarily profitable, but operates as if the lights are going to be shut off. 9. This is a HIGHLY political organization. There are often standstills between leadership because of personal feelings. On top of things being political, your opinion is only valued if you're tenured. The people who have been at the company for 10-15 years are given the most power, regardless of their level of intelligence or competence. 10. Salary isn't competitive and the company only promotes or gives rates on an annual schedule. Annual are less than 3%. When you get promoted, you can expect a $5k difference. So kiss your dreams goodbye. The concept of market rate is lost on these folks because the belief is that the perk is working for the brand, which is an abusive mentality. It means that immense pressure is put on everyone to recognize "how lucky they are" to be employed by Equinox.