Unfortunately, my time at Therabody is defined by:
- Bullying by leadership (constant scare-tactics and mismanagement)
- A fast pace (but NOT the positive, energetic kind) that doesn’t allow any department to make actual progress because everyone is always tripping over themselves
- Little-to-no organizational structure that fosters employee support
Leadership:
The key issue with Therabody lies in its leadership. The CEO is one of the most narcissistic leaders I have ever come across in my professional experience, and prides himself in his scare-tactic management style, by which he chooses a different victim weekly to publicly shame or scapegoat for company issues.
Similar to what another review here mentioned, the CEO is very interested in how the company appears to his ultra-wealthy peers, and one text from a rich country-club consumer could result in a re-brand or the firing of a talented contributor. He is the toxic embodiment of an “arm-chair art director” (note: he does not have any creative or artistic acumen), and keeps creative talent within the company from making any actual progress or being cutting edge. Creative is just one component of his micro-management (suffocation) issues, he also makes unfounded claims and rules about marketing/social media and again - keeps people from doing their jobs.
Furthermore, from a general leadership standpoint, the CEO is entirely detached from the world of people who have to work for a living. He has a philosophy that people aren’t meant to be promoted. In a company-wide town hall he explained that “you could work for the company for 5 years and never be promoted”, when obviously someone who is around that long is an asset to the company. This total disregard for normal career growth could only come from someone who has never had to worry about their career growth being linked to their livelihood and future opportunities. Additionally, he loves to make people fear for their jobs (yes, he will blatantly tell people they should be scared about sticking around), which creates such a hostile environment.
There is another prominent leader in the company (who, due to Glassdoor Community Guidelines, I cannot name or refer to by discipline) who is also a major bully. She puts on a fake smile in meetings and says empty “thank you’s” to the team, but then throws just about everyone under the bus behind their backs. For example, there have been instances of her openly talking about wanting to fire certain people while on video calls with non-leadership team members (just plain AWFUL leadership practice), and trash talking other team members in similar video call scenarios. She talks a big game about being supportive, but when it gets down to it I don’t think she’s ever supported anyone on the team she’s supposed to be leading.
Aside from being an outright bully, she is also not good at her job. She makes countless last minute changes and decisions on matters she doesn’t actually understand or take the time to learn about. Also, because the CEO is awful and scary, she does not stand up to him, and allows him to steamroll her department with his ill-informed ideas of what this team should be doing.
Due to the pandemic, she was rashly moved into her role very quickly, when she does not have a diverse background in her discipline to inform her new role. There are for more talented individuals at the company (both currently and who were let go due to the pandemic) who could do this job 1000x better.
Fast Pace:
“Ability to thrive in fast-paced environment” is a line in just about every job posting ever these days; we’re in an always-on digital world, so this makes sense! But a Therabody, it isn’t your typical startup energy fast-paced, its a toxic tornado. There is such a lack of tact done with certain things because speed is valued over everything. Everything is decided by leadership last minute, whether it’s product launches, campaign launches, ambassador launches etc., and it causes everyone to trip over their own two feet and hinders people from doing their best work. In short, they take work that should be done over the course of 2-3 months and slave-drive their employees to get it done in a matter of weeks.
Yes, every company and every professional role will have their share of late nights and fire drills. But at Theragun/Therabody, there are ONLY late nights and fire drills.
No employee support:
Throughout the interview process, I was told this was a company that valued work life balance, but I never once experienced this in my time at Therabody. Much of this has to do with leadership’s last minute decisions/changes, and unattainable quick turnarounds. The only reason you might hear about work/life balance in your recruiting process is because the (lovely) People Operations team are probably the only people in the entire company who have that (because interviews don’t happen at 12am or on Christmas). But if you’re not looking for a role on the People Ops team, expect to pull all-nighters and work on major holidays regularly.
Similarly to what I touched on re: the CEO above, this company does not offer internal growth or any sort of support or regard for career trajectory. They have no formal annual review process, and enter most informal annual reviews with the party line that “we’re still working on formalizing our company-wide review process right now, so we won’t be able to offer you any promotion or compensation increase at this time”. Pretty much, unless you are a favorite of one of the horrible leaders and therefore have their recommendation for a promotion, you will not get due process when it comes to common professional growth practices.
What is so ironic is that this is a health and wellness company, and yet they still do not truly value or prioritize the mental or physical health and wellness of their employees. It’s actually laughable, because they started scheduling weekly 15 minute mindfulness/meditation seminars led by the founder, but everyone’s videos are off because no one can actually take a 15 minute break at this company.
Conclusion:
If you read all the way through this, you can probably guess, but this company fosters a lot of anxiety, instability and self-doubt. If you are a self-respecting, talented person, I advise you look elsewhere on your job search. HINT: the only reason they are hiring is because it’s a revolving door!
