Pros
I figured the way I would approach this is by starting with the highest possible score (a five) and then explaining at each level, why that score would or would not be justified. It'll make sense in a minute. But first, since I'm in the "pros" section, I'll list a few of them out. rewardStyle is in a fairly interesting, unique space. It's not too common to see a fashion startup. They offer a 401(k) match; free money is always nice. When I left, they were doing free lunches on Wednesdays. And through the course of the work, a number of interesting technical challenges were presented. With that out of the way, I'd like to present the rest of my review. See the "cons" section to continue.
Cons
Does rewardStyle justify a: 5? I consider it fortunate that Glassdoor uses a five-point scale for reviewing companies. I say this because rewardStyle has employed a similar scale for employee reviews. And the highest rating, which they call "World Class," is not actually really supposed to be used unless you're legitimately the best in the world at something. (In training, they actually said that pretty much no one at the company should consider themselves "World Class.") rewardStyle employees started suspecting that this was just a ploy to keep the company from having to give out too many raises. After enough internal grumblings and jokes, the HR department declared that no longer would the words "World Class" get used in future performance reviews. They did not, however, say that they were going to eliminate this category of unattainable performance goals. Just that they would rename it. Talk about missing the point. Anyway, rewardStyle has not earned a five, and I hope that anyone who was involved in the creation of the company's performance review system realizes the irony if they think the company deserves that score. Obviously rewardStyle is not a "World Class" organization. How can it be, if none of its employees are world class? 4? There was never any semblance of stability. Sure, rewardStyle is a startup, but it was impossible for the company to maintain any consistency in its goals even from quarter to quarter. This led to countless reorgs and understaffed groups. There were tech teams that had no product manager and no product guidance whatsoever. This was not only incredibly frustrating, but also incredibly wasteful. 3? The company made some pretty hard decisions, such as shutting down an entire office. But honestly, even that didn't seem nearly as bad to me as the way the company treated its own long-time loyal early leaders. Obviously the company's leadership wanted to make some changes within the engineering organization. Instead of making these decisive personnel moves, it just marginalized some of its most talented and internally well-respected leadership to make room for new hires. 2? Though the company announced it was closing down its California office, it kept on a short-term team of engineers to help with knowledge sharing and information. The team was flown out to Dallas for three days to help with the transition. While this was generally awkward for everyone, most everyone in the Dallas headquarters was a gracious host. The one exception to that is the CEO. Though he was in the office all three days of the visit, never once did he approach the team to thank them for helping with the transition, or for the work they had done for the company or to wish them the best. The same goes for the rest of the team that had been laid off earlier. He was nowhere to be found the day the announcement was made. It seems that the CEO doesn't really enjoy the less positive aspects of running a business. Does that matter? Well, it's important to ask yourself a few questions: Can you trust that the CEO will be able to deliver bad news honestly? Will he be able to lead in times of crisis? Your guess is as good as mine, but I haven't seen anything to suggest that would be the case. And so to me, the score cannot be anything other than a 1. P.S. They banned color from the office. Seriously. Only black whiteboard markers were allowed. The management acts like cartoon villains from "Rainbow Brite."
