Retail Stores are Great, but the Corporate Office Is Not - Corporate Office REI Employee Review

3.0
6 Nov 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Amazing brand - If you love the outdoors, you feel like you're "home" when you first join the company - Work-life balance

Cons

- Unlike the retail stores, working at corporate means that passive-aggressive behavior is the norm. There's even a name for it: "REI Nice." You can have a nice, long career here as long as you enter with both eyes wide open and assume that no one is authentic. If someone acts friendly and says nice things, smile and nod, but don't buy it. Ever. As the saying goes, "Actions speak louder than words." Focus on people's actions and don't naively believe anything you hear from someone you think is a friend or at least an ally.

Explore other reviews about REI

5.0
20 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Fun time with fun employees

Cons

Schedule was tricky to coordinate

3.0
20 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Excellent coworkers - REI does a great job of hiring enthusiastic and personable staff - Slightly better pay compared with other retail in the area - Prodeals and discounts - Flexible hours - Good (although rapidly diminishing) healthcare benefits

Cons

- Once a (better) company known for its investment in knowledgeable and friendly staff via extensive training and investment, the company has been slowly slashing away at most of what makes it special since the pandemic - Hours and benefits are worsening, proper employee training is becoming hard to come by - lots of mediocrity and sometimes questionable ethical calls made by management - Punitive disciplinary policies that seem to be designed to create higher turnover (advantageous to them given the gradual pay, benefit and policy changes)

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