Where do I even start? TripActions was truly an amazing place to work at, but unfortunately, greed, money, and hypergrowth got in the way. I remember the days when TripActions was a culture and employee-first company. Everyone was passionate about their role at the company and humbled about the opportunity to transform the travel industry. Instead of growing organically and sustainably, leadership decided it was a great idea to scale the org from 80 to 1,000 employees in the span of two years. You can only imagine what can go wrong when a company grows that fast. It's like building the Empire State building without the walls, floors, electrical, plumbing, etc. On the outside, it looks beautiful, but once you go inside, everything is exposed. That is precisely what TripActions is.
Culture slowly but surely started to crumble and started becoming obvious amongst employees in every office. Management started talking behind people's back, weekly Kool-Aid sessions were held with leadership, and cool clubs began popping up in every department. I felt a hint of favoritism and racism. I noticed employees who were minorities starting to get terminated first, and at one point, I remember 6-8 in a row minority firings. Coincidence? Maybe....
The sales team became a cutthroat environment of pressure selling and not taking a no for an answer. Targets & goals became astronomically ludicrous and unsustainable. On top of that, the comp plan worked against your favor if you did well and took about a year to finally be addressed. Leadership started to compare TripActions to landing the man on the moon and even to curing cancer!! At the end of the day, TripActions is simply a travel tool and not anywhere close to being an essential product that companies need to operate. Hence the reason for revenue going down and layoffs. It was only a matter of time until people saw the real side of TripActions. Leadership only cares about themselves and have no empathy for anyone below them. The amazing culture that once was is dead, and TripActions will serve as a case study on how not to build a company.