Leadership. There is an incredible gulf between the leadership team and a majority of employees. Issues that employees care and are concerned about fall on willfully closed ears in every format that feedback is received. Whether in small group settings or All Hands settings, the consistent response to uncomfortable but important questions are red herring arguments and abrasive and condescending tones that belittle employees' concerns and work to prevent topics from being brought up again. The fact that the same questions are raised time and time again indicates that people don't feel that they have received an honest answer or that their concern has been heard.
Compensation. It is recognized across the organization that for most teams, compensation is consistently below market rate and merit increases are generally meager. This is confirmed by employees frequently interviewing elsewhere to benchmark their pay and by the employees that do ultimately leave and share with their peers and managers just how much of a delta there is. When this issue is raised to leadership by employees and hiring managers, it is met with the toxic and demoralizing response that working at BlueVine is not just about the money you make, but more importantly it is about the mission of what the team is trying to build. It is implied that if all you are worried about is money then you are not a culture fit for this "mission-driven" organization. It is as if it is physically impossible for employees to simultaneously care deeply about the mission of the organization while also caring about being paid fairly.
Inequality. In parts of the organization, there is significant unconscious bias in leadership demonstrated consistently in hiring practices, lack of equal pay and career advancement for equal work, and microaggressions in day to day interactions. This is visible in the lack of diversity in both upper and middle management which has resulted in a lack of diversity of opinions. The presence of these factors are widely felt, observed, and discussed behind closed doors with little accomplished to counteract them despite calls for change. When incidents are reported to HR, nothing comes of it and those with influence in the organization are protected.
Work-life balance. While of course it is not required to work long hours, the working hours needed to keep up with the workload are unsustainable. The workload is ever increasing as it is becomes more and more difficult to hire and retain employees due to uncompetitive compensation and an obstinate insistence that fully remote roles will not be allowed. The increased workload is framed as "growth opportunities", but your compensation never actually catches up to the level of responsibility that you have taken on. It was more common than not to work 14-16 hour days in addition to several hours on the weekend.
