BetterUp reviews

3.0

44% would recommend to a friend

(484 total reviews)
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Alexi Robichaux

48% approve of CEO

43% positive business outlook

BetterUp has an employee rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars, based on 484 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The BetterUp employee rating is 22% below average for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

484 reviews
1.0
Jun 27, 2023

BetterDown and WorseUp

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Inspiring mission, product and wicked smart team members and coaches who are passionate about making a difference in the world.

Cons

Yes, BetterUp is rapidly transforming and organizational culture starts at the top. Take notice of Alexi's CEO rating as the downward spiral is a reflection of his high ego approach to leading and the emerging BetterDown culture. Toxic work environment: The CEO's is inspiring a toxic work environment characterized by fear, intimidation, and favoritism. Employees are feeling undervalued, disengaged, and demotivated, leading to high turnover rates and a decline in overall morale. (Ask about the people survey trends quarter over quarter during your interview process. ) Losing amazing talent: BetterUp is now a dysfunctional organization and is struggling to retain top talent. Talented individuals are being deterred by the toxic work environment and lack of growth opportunities. (Consider asking how many team members have departed BetterUp in the last 12 months. Now ask how many managers/leaders have departed in the last 12 months. People quit their leaders, not their company.) Radical candor is a trap: CEO and executive team are consistently sabotaging psych safety and courage. Surveys asking leaders for candid input/feedback are not confidential and are used to remove disscenters. Slogans are regularly used to drive Alexi's vague "commanders intent." He is quick to attribute the lack of organization clarity to leaders as they are ineffectively cascading yet another obscure "strategic" "pivot." Team members are inspired to adopt a "growth mindset" which is code to "assimilate" by looking within for answers and keep your concerns and questions to yourself. BetterUp is struggling to adapt and improve, as valuable insights and perspectives are discouraged and disregarded.

3.0
Jul 1, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-Competitive Pay -You get your own executive coach - Some of the benefits are fantastic, especially Mat/Pat Leave - I’m passionate about coaching, and it was a blast to support clients to provide coaching to their people - The investment in science and analytics is the very best in the industry that I’ve seen - For a person in a phase of life who wants to work hard at a cutting edge company in a high intensity and competitive environment I believe this would be a really great fit -BetterUp will likely continue to have success because providing executive coaching at scale is something companies want and BetterUp is at forefront of this space

Cons

-One gets the sense from BetterUp’s online presence, hiring, and onboarding that this company would be a positive, coaching culture where people are passionate about coaching, who work hard but have decent work life balance. In reality, the internal coaching by managers is poor, and it is a cut throat, money focused, competitive & frenetic culture, with poor work life balance. -Unfortunately, because of the mismatch between what it presents itself to be in hiring and onboarding, and what it is, many people find themselves mismatched to the company.  -The turnover of employees is high. Colleagues have frequently confided in me a constant fear of being fired. Many people are burnt out. People get fed up and leave. Within a year most of my friends from my onboarding class are gone. A third of the people from my first team are gone. Several people from my team that was recently formed have left or put in their notice.  -Stress and internal change is high and comes from the top. While it’s presented as “startup” problems, I think in reality, a lot of the internal stress and change is created by Alexi’s frenetic leadership style. At nearly every all hands meeting during last year, Alexi would directly or indirectly threaten layoffs. The amount of internal change is relentless, and in my view, frequently unnecessary. The pressure is constantly high and that leads to short term thinking. All about this quarter’s results.  - Clients are negatively impacted by the high turnover of account managers. It's not uncommon that a client would have had 3+ account managers in the last 12 months. -Politics are a significant factor in how your career evolves at BetterUp. Working for a tenured member of the clan gives you a major leg up. I’ve seen stellar senior leaders and high performing individual contributors alike let go during my time here. High impact behaviors are weaponized against you when they want you out.

2.0
Feb 18, 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Pay is about top 33% of industry standards. Potential for the company to pay top 10% overtime. - CEO and COO are visionaries and listening them speak will motivate you. - DE&I friendly. We practice what we preach here when it comes to inclusion.

Cons

- "Nepotism". Many of upper management are in positions they don't belong in because they are siblings with the founders or close friends with the founders leading to many employees not feeling comfortable enough to call out their biases. - Sometimes the growth opportunities for the company can be scary for those that haven’t seen a company grow as fast as BetterUp has. We've hired many internal employees for management positions based off their potential to grow which is wonderful for their career development but requires their respective teams to be comfortable with incompetent management due to lack of leadership experience or actual job experience. - Most of the reviews you'll read here are biased because the company asks you to post a review when you onboard (and you're still motivated). I've been here for 1+ years and I've seen many many people get fired or quit (non-covid related) because of the two reasons above.

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BetterUp Response
4y
Thank you for taking time to share your thoughts. We take feedback on our teammates’ experiences very seriously. and the ‘nepotism’ experience you outlined here is certainly not the internal promotion culture we’re aiming to cultivate. As with all external candidate interviews, our internal interview process is also standardized to minimize biases and to allow for hiring managers to make the best choice for their vacancy. Should you believe there are any biases that may be affecting a particular internal opportunity, please reach out to the dedicated HR Business Partner for that specific team to address this concern. As our company continues to scale, we recognize the growing pains and the need to address Manager Enablement opportunities. As revealed in our company-wide Culture Commits, this is a top priority for the company in Q1 and Q2, and we look forward to implementing more Manager Training initiatives in the weeks and months ahead. If you have any concerns regarding your team structure or about a specific individual manager, our open door policy and anonymous feedback mechanisms are always available to employees. Thank you again for being so candid in your feedback, and we look forward to continuing to empower our managers and to continue providing transparency in our internal promotion hiring processes. - The BetterUp People Team
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