Houzz reviews

3.3

46% would recommend to a friend

(1,562 total reviews)
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Alon Cohen

46% approve of CEO

34% positive business outlook

Houzz has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 1,562 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Houzz employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
2.0
May 7, 2017

A little dose of TRUTH

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Fully stocked kitchen Great friends and co-workers Awesome office space Cross wide work events Great health benefits

Cons

Unqualified leadership. Managers are selected based on how many times they say "yes" to everything through out their time at houzz. People who have been here longer are not given lead positions but rather people who are friends and close buddies of managers get opportunities handed to them. Through out my one year working here, I have seen a bunch of unqualified people get promoted. People I often see chit chatting in the kitchen or work lounges while the rest of their teams have piles and piles of never ending work to complete. Not all people are treated equally. Non sales roles have it very tough at houzz. They don't get promotions easily, the work load and the pressure to complete an intense amount of work leaves them feeling super unappreciated. Yet, they KNOW everything there is to know about houzz and the websites inner functioning. They deal with managers and leads and sales reps all day, being mistreated by some and still being reprimanded by their manager who just wants to cover his or her own butt. Their managers don't stand up for them either, making matters worse. Comp plans are changed constantly because certain people at the top don't feel *comfortable* giving the non sales reps 100% of their well deserved bonuses based on non tangible aspects of their job (even though their whole job cannot be easily measured with numbers). When questions are asked, managers are clueless, deflecting answers by giving basically non-answers. All of this while, you see the sales teams who make twice or three times as much as you go on incentive trips with the sales and account management teams that you had a part in helping them get as well. Instead of having a few members of these non sales roles be a part of these coveted incentive trips, you see your manager partake, even though they made ZERO contribution. This is very normal at houzz...you get rewarded for doing nothing (texting all day, instagramming and snap chatting is a must, but you're in trouble if you're constantly working. You must be crazy!) Even though they had zero to do with accomplishments of the sales teams. Again, unfair and completely biased mistreatment of support vs. sales roles in the offices. Culture of oppression. The culture of not asking questions, keeping your head down and smiling is an integral part of the misery that has been built up at houzz. Unlike my previous point, this happens across all roles and all teams. When new policies or projects are being rolled out and it is very apparent that NO thought or realistic expectations have been put forth, affected teams naturally get upset and feel unheard. Instead of standing up for their teams and communicating to upper management that these role changes and added responsibilities are just too much, managers act fake. Smiling and nodding yes to everything thrown to them because they are too afraid to actually give constructive criticism back to their own supervisor. Instead they aren't transparent about changes, and have their leads or other managers watch the reactions and spy on what the inner chatter of their teams are. They use this as a reason to set up unnecessary and painfully awkward meetings in which they accuse you of not being a "team player" and reminding you to be "positive" no matter how questionable things are. Basically throw out all reason and you shall be the perfect employee. You speak up and you will feel the burn. You will be falsely asked to give your true opinion and when you do, you are met with "well it's important to be positive and to say yes to opportunities if you want to get ahead." Meetings are also just a waste of time, full of empty promises and lies about the future of your role and your career growth. What these unqualified managers don't understand is that it's not that your teams are being resistant to new tasks, it's that they are reasonable human beings who are overwhelmed by the new responsibilities that come out of no where and very underwhelmed by the lack of care and the poor pay that comes with all of it. Therefore, you see this happen to other people who speak up and as a result you get scared. You don't say anything to you manager even when she pretends that she wants you to be honest. And you get more and more fed up with true politics of this place when you see your manager and her friends talking in the kitchen and whispering for hours on end after a meeting you just had with them.

2.0
Nov 22, 2017

Sit down, be humble.

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

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?

1.0
Mar 24, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Do you watch the show Downton Abbey? It's like that. As an employee, you are the downstairs serving staff. You have the greatest of friends, the company gives you a bit of food, and a tiny cubicle to live in. (Yes, you will LIVE in this cubicle. Before you apply, think about going into a tiny cubicle every day, staring at a computer screen, and talking on the phone for *2000 hours a year for a meager paycheck! Working here is solitary confinement, but with free chobani yogurt. If your eyes are ruined because of staring at a computer screen all day, you do have vision insurance. So, that is a pro. But, like, also a con.) *52 weeks x 40 hours a week

Cons

Continuing with this analogy... Your managers are royalty. They are not your friends. You are their servants. Bow your head and fall in line. If you question anything, they will simply hire another servant to replace you. Why do you think Houzz creates so many fake Glassdoor reviews? They have a huge recruiting team to trick future servants to apply. Believe it or not, Houzz Glassdoor reviews are more fake than the people who work here. My ex-manager was the most incompetent, unintelligent, irrational, feebleminded person I have ever met. With absolutely zero experience, she was promoted to a managerial role because of her big smile and affable personality. *Ex-manager, if you’re reading this, affable means friendly and easy to talk to! I am giving you a compliment, yay!* Sorry everyone else, she’s a little a slow. Now back to the review… After being in the role for a year, my ex-manager with no experience seemed like she still had zero experience. She asked my teammates and I for help with everything. She would ask other managers for help with the most simple tasks if she was too embarrassed to ask one of her servants. She knew nothing Jon Snow! Nothing! She had the memory and attention span of a goldfish, which is an insult to goldfish everywhere. If you think I am exaggerating, please apply, get the job, and infiltrate this office to see for yourself. Houzz promotes people based on how likable they are. Luckily for my ex-manager, Houzz urgently needed someone who could blindly follow orders and she was in the right place at the right time. Like being born into royalty on the show Downton Abbey ya know?

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Glassdoor has 1,679 Houzz reviews submitted anonymously by Houzz employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Houzz is right for you.