Don't be fooled by flashy start up life - Customer Service Specialist Gusto Employee Review

2.0
22 Jan 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- cool environment -free lunch -no shoe atmosphere - great work location -1 year flyaway

Cons

-Blind leading the blind as far as training goes. It's all college graduates with no payroll experience. Small businesses use this service to help make educated business decisions, however, people providing support are not well educated in the subject matter - PE's (aka managers) have no connection to the work that their team actually does, wouldn't be able to do the role of the workers they manage. -High metric expectations. -If you are in a customer facing support role, you will literally answer calls for 6 hours in a row (maybe more during busy tax season) and have no time to actually work on the problems that people are calling in about -Unrealistic social expectations - they want everyone to drink the Gusto kool-aid and if you don't want to hang out with your co-workers after work you are ostracized -Clique-like environment - feels like you are back in high school -Support team has to work mandatory weekends during the tax season - although the position is sold as M-F job -Operation Team puts more money, thought and time into giving Gusto swag to their employees than fixing the problems in their software -Internal bugs are not addressed in a timely fashion which leads to just stringing customers along -Can only get hired there if you know someone there - promotions are also not always based on merit, but on social

Explore other reviews about Gusto

5.0
10 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Smart and friendly coworkers. Excellent team culture

Cons

Tunnel visions on AI a bit too much

2.0
20 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The product is genuinely good, too bad the same can’t be said for how they treat the people who sell it.

Cons

Leadership talks a big game about people-first culture but the reality doesn’t match. The Chicago office expansion felt like a poorly thought-out experiment, new hires were brought on without a clear long-term commitment, and layoffs came without warning, leaving people blindsided. Crossing a billion dollars in revenue and still cutting employees sends a clear message about where workers rank on the priority list. Remote work flexibility is also a glaring weakness. For a company selling HR software to modern businesses, their internal stance on where employees can work is surprisingly rigid and hypocritical. The “flexibility” messaging is mostly optics. The broader concern is the AI roadmap. The automation push feels less like an innovation strategy and more like a slow wind-down of the workforce. Employees aren’t blind to it, it creates anxiety and erodes trust. The culture of transparency they promote externally is largely a facade internally.

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