Pros
1) Birthday Parties 2) Free Food Friday 3) Co-workers - I’ve made friends with some of the best people I’ve ever had the pleasure of being around.
Cons
When I started at Houzz there were promises about growth and potential which is not the case. Turnover is high, morale is low, management is under-qualified (aside from a few Pro+ managers and Marketplace managers i.e. Risk and Logistics). The majority of the managers I personally worked with were defensive, horrible listeners and not present when you needed them. I think they were too afraid of their own bosses to stand up for their team. Raises are given begrudgingly. You will get one in most cases if: 1) If you have an external opportunity on the table. 2) After a ton of turnover occurs 3) If you’re a brown noser who plays the game and becomes a favorite of senior management regardless if the people you manage have positive things to say about you or not My training in every role was rushed and in one case my manager didn’t understand my role and used my notes to train the next hires for our team. I did the majority of the training and helped the team get running but they wouldn’t promote me to a lead even though she verbally admitted I was already doing the work of the lead. It’s nice HR listened to employee complaints and started requiring additional training for management but you could waste less money and effort by promoting people who are actually qualified to begin with. When my team told that same manager several times that the metrics being used to track our progress weren’t being calculated accurately she didn’t address it and just kept saying she’d look into it. The lack of concern and the run around given to us was stressful as our bonuses were tied to numbers that weren’t even accurate. One of the biggest disappointments came after a co-worker created a non-profit project that got shelved. After some time passed the CEO spoke about the program in a meeting taking credit for the idea and even the ideas that my co-worker pitched but were never launched. Too many other people had quit by that point to remember my friend started this but several of us remembered this and were upset at the lack of integrity. I have at least six co-workers who wanted to leave this toxic environment so badly they quit without having other jobs lined up. That should speak volumes. Houzz is like the U.S. government and the employees are like women and minority groups. When employees speak up about changing and helping the company run better and providing better opportunities (like pay and career paths) Houzz is more concerned with money and saving face than actually addressing their issues of poor management, favoritism, arrogance and poor integrity. We were told to be grateful for what we already had instead of them taking ownership with humility of their missteps, oversight or pure dishonesty. Why actually fix the issue if you can keep your yes men happy and bribe people to write positive Glassdoor reviews? These identical "Houzz is the best place to work" reviews aren't fooling anyone. Why listen to these “bad apples” who need to just be quiet, fall in line and be thankful they work at Houzz? Why give your employees salaries that make sense for living in the OC when you can distract them by installing a slide and giving them free food all the time?