If you're a talented and clever young professional - don't join the Wayfair hamster wheel!
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Some colleagues are very nice, company parties are great as well.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
All of the points I mentioned about. I definitely cannot recommend Wayfair as a place to learn, improve and build business or personal self-esteem. It is exactly the opposite. So think twice before you join this company. There are so many amazing companies out there which value you as a person are truly interested in developing and supporting you. Stay away from Wayfair as a young, highly talented professional!
Verbesserungsvorschläge
Remove the review cycle and let team members be evaluated by their manager. They spend most of their time with them and know best about their performance and improvement areas.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Big open space office, reminds me of chicken battery farm. Way too loud and the office building is not appealing, neither from the outside, nor from the inside. Too many people are sitting very close to each other. Situated in the middle of Berlin (Alexanderplatz) there is no space nearby to have a quiet lunch break (which you will skip mostly anyways).
Kommunikation
Top down communication from management. No room for discussions or improvements. You have to be able to strictly follow the management guidelines and don't be creative! Otherwise this is not the place for you.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
I like to use the chicken battery example again: Because you sit so close and spend all of your (unpaid) overtime hours together, the team spirit is quite strong.
Work-Life-Balance
Even though they promote some offers like free yoga classes or gym membership discounts - that doesn't matter much because you won't have time to use those incentives anyways. And if you have time, you won't have any energy because this place sucks out all of your happiness and joy.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Top management profiles themselves constantly. They really think they are the biggest just because they worked at big consultancies before. What is really clear to feel is their lack of people management skills like empathy, trust, encouragement, humbleness. Management is more interested in the development of their Wayfair stocks than developing their team members. If I would need to describe the behaviour of the management: Unfair, non-transparent, superficial, selfish, only focused on money, cliquish with other management members, pretending to be something which they aren't, disrespectful.
Interessante Aufgaben
Repeating tasks. Filling out excel sheets for hours as trade show preparation. After 6 months you will know all of your tasks because they will be the same everyday. In other companies I learned much more in half of the time. My time at Wayfair didn't bring me any value.
Gleichberechtigung
People without consulting experience are being downgraded. Even though management wouldn't tell you this but it is very obvious in the way they threat you.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
There are no older colleagues. Everyone is around 28-40. Nobody older than that would want to work there and would tolerate the management's behaviour.
Arbeitsbedingungen
You are expected to use your own / private mobile phone to answer business calls (from your manager and clients)! Also you are expected to read emails after normal office ours (after 8/9pm). Most of the people are working on the weekends. Management expects you to be responsive on the weekends as well. After 16+hours on a tradeshow you are expected to respond to emails in the evening. You won't get a day off the next day. Tradeshow visits on Saturday and Sunday are mandatory. I don't even know if this legally allowed in Germany.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
Dropshipping and shipping in general is not the most environmentally friendly business activity. But Wayfair does not care about this. All that counts is money. Packages need to be wrapped double with plastic and other materials so that items wont break. The more plastic and protection the better - that is what Wayfair aims for. No compensation for all the carbon dioxide resulting from shipping packages allover Europe (or the US). This company must have a huge carbon footprint and they won't spend money on reducing it.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
Salary is only average, especially if you break it down to all the unpaid overtime hours and weekends you spend working for this company.
Image
Either no one knows Wayfair and if they heard something about this company than it is associated with a negative image (especially as an employer).
Karriere/Weiterbildung
Review cycles which happen 2x a year prevent you to climb up the ladder, even if you're doing an exceptional job. The rule is: A promotion is only possible after 1 full year. And also then people from other departments will rate you even though you never ever saw them / worked with them. This system is so bad, not transparent and especially it does not evaluate peers in an equal way. In my review they wrote down things which simply were not true - and even though I showed them the proof - they didn't remove it.