Booking.com reviews

Over the time I've worked here, I watched it go down hill. When I was first hired, we had fab Fridays twice a month where the company gave us free food or gifts. We were able to listen to music while working. Their motto was numbers don't matter as long as the guest is satisfied. They had a yearly meeting in Amsterdam you could be chosen to attend, all expense paid, that everyone worked towards, and if you weren't chosen, there were parties at your office with games, food, and gifts. Before our eyes we watched this all change. The meeting in Amsterdam was discontinued, fab Fridays faded to one Friday a month, and then disappeared altogether. Music was banned, and suddenly it felt every time you turned, someone was pushing numbers. The system of bonus structure changed, making it harder for employees to get a high bonus, if any. You get heavily impacted on your customer satisfaction scores, despite the fact that most of the time, the guests are rating the hotel or the situation, not you. How your lead sees you and how motivated they are to see you get a bonus is how you get one. The PTO system is wack. They give a massive amount of PTO ( a month ), however, they give it to you all at once, and that is all you get. Sick? PTO. Vacation? PTO. Emergency? PTO. You can't ask for days off unpaid, you can't give them doctors note to get unpaid days off, you can't even give shifts away. You can switch to have days off, but that's it. Although PTO is supposed to be used at the employee's discretion, Booking.com forces you to use yours in order to get a day off at all, even when sick. Although they have FMLA after a year, it's nearly impossible to get and constantly denied. It's a broken system that needs to be fixed, as no other company forces hourly employees to take PTO for a day off or does not allow them to opt for unpaid days off. Even when telling them a year in advance about a vacation, if you don't have the PTO for whatever reason, you will not be able to go or will lose your job. Even if you have a doctors note letting them know you physically can not work, if you don't have the PTO, you're either coming in anyway or getting written up. And if you get written up, it lasts forever and never falls off. In the long run there is one thing a prospective employee should remember about this job title - it is a call center. It is also the complaints department. You are going to be yelled at. Screamed at. Blamed. Sometimes Booking.com's system screws up but they will adamantly deny all responsibility and point fingers at hotels that have no idea how our system works, leaving the agent forced to stammer and stutter out excuses to both the guest and the hotel to try to spin blame when we all know really who's fault it is. Guests are angry and they're going to take it out on you. Grab your patience, your softest, most calming voice, and get ready. Quality and coaching is vastly dependent on the Team Lead and the Quality Executive you have. I had several teams during my time, and some quality executives would ding me for things others had told me to do. There was no winning unless you hone yourself to exactly what THAT quality executive wants. The parking is free but lately there have been break ins and a few people's car windows were smashed. My own tire was slashed in the parking lot. They got extra security, but it was like pulling teeth to get it. There are ways to move up, but they are so few and far between that the entire building goes for them when they pop up. Anywhere outside of your building is barely worth hoping for since you'll most likely never get it. All of the good jobs are in Amsterdam. It's a good job for now. If you can't see yourself in a specific position there, it's best to get the skills and the name on your resume and go somewhere that will help you grow and excel into higher positions after a while

What began as one of the best jobs I've ever has turned into a complete nightmare. The company initially reaped of benefits and managerial staff had empathy for it's employees, we had end of the month catering- noted as Fab Fridays, for the holiday's they would provide food, we had an annual, all expenses paid trip to Amsterdam to learn about the culture, and meet global colleagues. Flash Forward 3 years later, our Fab Fridays are non existent, for holidays they request that we, the employees contribute the food now, they've eliminated the Amsterdam trip and have created a local "Roadshow". The employee experience has gone from 5 star drastically down to a 1 star rating. Something that has shocked a lot of employees because the company is growing exponentially and making tons of money, yet the employees benefits have been slowly taken away. Another negative of this company is that as it is currently growing, trying to become a monster hospitality website, it lacks in consistency with its guidelines, procedures and even its security guidelines . As a Customer Service Guest Specialist, rules, procedures, and important security guidelines change constantly with just an email telling us to review the material and compelling us to learn it ourselves- sometimes our team leaders just tell us about the change but they themselves aren't given enough time to even study the guidelines and therefore provide effective counsel on such changes. The quality team than reprimands you, which in return results in threats by your team lead with Performance Improvement Plans because you didn't adhere to such guidelines. Before there would be training sessions for such drastic changes and they would be discussed in workshops- these workshops are also non-existent. The structure for reprimanding employees is inconsistent as higher management doesn't have a proper checks and balances system to ensure that their team leads are treating employees fairly. An example: Someone that i knew was late every single day for two months and only got a write up, he was favored by his team lead, yet an agent the other day had 3 late occurrences and got the same level write up. The policies are biased and unfair. The environment at this office has always been encompassed with favoritism, what you read in other posts in regards to favoritism is all true. Team leader's have favorites on their team and therefore sometimes sanction some differently than they do others and keep in mind that this can also affect you from growing in this company- again no consistency. The Human resources department is also a joke. They protect the team leads instead of actually listening and INVESTIGATING the concerns brought to their attention by subordinates. There is nothing kept anonymous as Team Leads and HR representatives have close bonds. The code of conduct states that Retaliation is forbidden, but the same employees who reach out to HR in confidence that their concerns will be heard, addressed and rectified eventually end up at the bottom of the food chain and well, let go or fired for "other reasons". Strict scrutiny, i have come to notice, is placed on these employees. Human Resources does nothing about it! For solutions we have to perhaps reach out to Amsterdam to get a positive result but I personally am not certain how effective they do their jobs.