Horrible Management and Hostile Work Environment - Design Consultant Ethan Allen Employee Review

1.0
Oct 16, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Most designers are excellent. Nice products and fabrics to design with. Other than that, nothing positive.

Cons

Horrible, punitive, untrustworthy, unprofessional leadership. Management cares nothing about the hard-working, design conscious staff. All they care about is sales numbers. If you're serious about design, this is not the place for you. For the most part, they hire excellent designers but beat them to the ground in a hostile work environment. Some "designers" have no design skills but are good at stealing other people's clients, backstabbing, and immature behavior. Those are the people management loves and supports. The pay is lousy for the long, long hours. You work every weekend day and all holidays. There is no schedule flexibility. Designers are not paid for the work they do. - they only care about quantity of sales. We are on commission and the stress is incredible with the manager not recognizing nor rewarding for quality work. Designers often go into debt to the company, even when many mistakes are caused by poor quality product, damaged product, poor support, horrible customer service, mistakes made by the management or operations team. No matter what the reason, the designer is blamed and not paid for their hard work - money is taken away. There is no work/life balance. Management bullies their employees. The technology is so outdated. It is always down and causes so much stress for us and our customers. No training. They lie about the training they provide. It's a joke.

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5.0
Mar 31, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Great management, experience, and work environment

Cons

I don’t have any cons

3.0
Jun 29, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It's a well-known name and carries weight on a resume. That's about where it ends.

Cons

Leadership operates with little to no regard for the people actually doing the work. The company has slashed headcount while increasing workload, and salaried employees are reminded of their status as a way to justify working nights and weekends. Performance reviews and raises are virtually nonexistent, often for years at a stretch — which means staying loyal actually costs you money, since your pay loses purchasing power to inflation every year you go without an increase. Compensation is well below market for the industry and region — low enough that part-time second jobs aren't uncommon among corporate employees. Decisions come down from leadership abruptly, with no real communication or context, and middle managers are too afraid for their own jobs to push back or advocate for their teams. Office politics are constant, treatment is uneven, and advancement is reserved for a select few, so tenure and loyalty mean nothing. Systems and processes feel decades behind. Overall, it feels less like a workplace investing in people and more like an operation focused on extracting as much as possible while giving back as little as possible.

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