I’m nervous to write this review because the last time someone wrote a less than glowing review they went on a witch hunt for them. I remember they literally brought people in to ask if they knew who wrote the bad review. That’s probably why you see only positive reviews on here. That should give you an idea for how open they are to feedback. Unfortunately there’s a lot of bad I could put here but I think the biggest thing at least in the sales department is you’re really not in control of your destiny here. Most sales people like sales because they get paid based on the revenue they bring in. At BambooHR everyone is salaried and there’s no outlined way to get a raise or get promoted. It’s very political and I know people that have created goals with their manager to get promoted or a raise and are told “if you hit these goals it’s almost guaranteed it will happen” only to be told after they hit them that they needed to see one more month of “exceptional performance” before they get a raise or promotion. They like to dangle the carrot in front of you to squeeze everything they can get out of you without having to give you anything in return. Recently it seems like they have been trigger happy with performance plans and letting people go too. I’ve heard of multiple people getting put on weekly performance plans where they need to hit top rep stats in every measurable metric from calls, demos, price quotes sent and sales in a week or they get let go. They have to do this every week for a month. It’s essentially a death sentence. I have heard that people make it the first or second week but no one makes it through all four weeks. There was even someone that hit his quota for the month but their manager felt like they didn’t have enough sales for the month so he got put on a performance plan to have a certain number of sales for the next month and if he didn’t hit it he’d be let go! Can you believe it? He hit his quota and STILL got put on a plan! It really seems like they’re leading by fear and if you question them or make a suggestion they don’t like or say anything bad on the anonymous survey they send out, they come after you. In all honesty I’d be okay with weekly performance plans or performance plans even if you hit quota but they’re just making things up as they go along. No one actually knows how to get onto a performance plan and it seems like these days if you sneeze in the wrong direction you’ll be on a performance plan. I’ve been really lucky (and I do mean lucky) to be on their good side but it still isn’t sitting well with me. I’ve talked with a few of our top performers and they don’t love it here but they’re being paid well to do something they’re good at and they know they can’t say anything or else they might find themselves on a performance plan. It could be that all the other departments are great so it might be just fine to get a job in another department but I would steer clear of the sales department. On the other hand, if you can be successful early here and become well liked by the managers and the sales leadership it could actually be a comfortable living.
Now that I got my year-end bonus I am actively searching for a new job. Another thing is they hate on companies that offer free food, or have ping pong tables or gyms onsite because they say that’s not real company culture. I personally think that’s called an inexpensive way (especially for a tech company) to show you care about their health and wellness but what do I know? It sounds like it’s more of an excuse to not have to pay for them. Again, I’m actually fine with them NOT providing those things but to proactively mock companies that do? What kind of company culture is that? Want to hear something ironic? The company founders first met each other while they were playing ping pong!
I’m also worried about us from a competition standpoint. The best way to describe the software is as a jack of many trades (notice I didn’t say all) and master of none. There are a lot of things we can do but we don’t do any of them exceptionally well and I know salespeople are always hoping there are certain features they don’t want the customer to ask about. We literally had a meeting a few months ago where the leadership team asked what our competitive advantage was and we had a hard time coming up with anything. Competitors that have been in the game for far less time than we have are passing us up in features and functionality. It certainly feels like a sinking ship right now.
Trying to get money out of BambooHR is like trying to squeeze blood out of a rock. We brag about being debt free and having tons of cash on hand but we won’t invest the necessary funds to improve the software, we have some bare bone benefits (with the exception of a few), and the incentives we get are embarrassing ($50 to Nike for the top performing AE for the month as an example). It also seems like instead of investing on improving the software we’re just trying to throw more salespeople at the problem. We’re just hanging on to the good reputation we had at the beginning and I’m nervous this is going to turn into a Blockbuster story.
The funny thing is I actually think our new CEO can turn it around but it’s going to take time and I don’t think I can stick around for the ride. But seriously, if they like you and you have success early on it can be a quick trip to the top. Be warned, they can change their mind about you in an instant. You’ll likely never be a manager but you can make good money doing the same thing month in and month out. Time to start looking aggressively before they come after me.
