Will it get better? Because it can't get much worse... - Manager Edmunds.com Employee Review

At the end of December 2019, the company warned ALL employees of upcoming layoffs - this caused every single employee to fear for their jobs and update their resumes through the holidays. If Edmunds were trying to handle layoffs the worst way possible, they succeeded. So January 2020 comes around, and 25% of the staff was laid off. Multiple employees that were due promotions were instead rewarded with being let go. The layoffs stripped the company of tons of talent, and left departments decimated - only one employee in PR, zero in marketing, etc. Morale was at an all-time low. For those that survived the layoffs, many started to job hunt immediately. To prevent anymore talent from fleeing, retention bonuses were offered to a minority of employees, which instead created tension with those that weren't included. Could things get any worse? Yes. Because then, COVID-19 hit. The decrease in car sales led Edmunds to offer discounts to its dealer partners to retain their business. Edmunds then passed along this loss in business revenue to their already overworked and understaffed workforce via a 10% reduction in salary, and gave no estimation of when salaries would return to normal. How did a company with such a long standing in the automotive industry sink to such lows? 1) Leadership No long-term vision or strategy. CEO is nice and accessible, but he and the leadership team are leading the company straight into the ground. They need to sell the rest of the company to CarMax and cut their losses, or gracefully exit and step aside for new leadership. You've had your chance and you've failed. Take it on the chin. 2) Product In tech, you're only as good as your product. Total lack of innovation here - the products are mediocre, and EVERYONE knows it. Yet, the product leadership still have their jobs and extremely bloated salaries. Why? Because they're in the "in crowd"? They need to be gone. 3) Sales-driven organization Sales team is too reactive, too focused on short-term sales goals. Sales team starts fires weekly, and the cross-functional teams have to clean up their mess. Both the Tier 1 and Tier 3 businesses are dying. Churn is high. Turnover on the sales team is high. It's all bad. 4) Marketing The org doesn't believe in marketing at all. There's a reason everyone's heard of Edmunds' competitors, but they haven't heard of Edmunds.