TL;DR - the main issues come down to poor pay and the eroding culture.
- I came from Hubs where the culture was the healthiest out of all the companies I’ve ever worked for. Since we’ve integrated with Protolabs the culture has completely eroded. This is mainly due to a lack of trust. The PL Executive Leadership Team (ELT) thinks that scheduling pizza parties will fix the culture, but they seemingly don’t understand that trust must be established again before the culture can improve.
- Speaking of trust, I no longer trust anyone on the ELT, nor HR. We have given feedback countless times, through the proper channels, and yet the ELT and HR refuse to actually acknowledge our concerns. They want us to keep bringing our honest feedback and yet they have fired some people in retaliation when speaking up. ELT also refuses to address the elephant in the room regarding commission/pay and how unfair it is. If they truly cared, they would respond to these reviews by admitting there are legitimate issues and how they are working to address them instead of providing the boilerplate response to each one, which I’m sure they’ll do even for this review.
- Commission / pay structure is unfair. Even at Hubs the base pay wasn’t the greatest but the commission structure was very generous and you could earn a lot if you hit / exceeded your targets. In other words, it actually rewarded top performers. But that is no longer the case. You are no longer rewarded for consistently hitting targets, but rather taken advantage of by them demanding more from you and paying you less. For example, I was one of the top salespeople last year and was paid well for it through commission and bonuses. But this year, my target was increased by well over 200%. I now have one of the highest quotas in the entire company, but was I offered the chance to be promoted to Strategic Account Manager (SAM)? No. Was my base pay adjusted accordingly despite now having a higher target than most of the SAMs? No. More importantly, aside from base, the commission plan doesn’t help you make up for it. Another example: in Q1 of this year I not only hit target but it was my best quarter ever by hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, Protolabs paid me literally over $20k less in Q1 under the new commission structure when compared to our previous structure, all else being equal. Even if I hit my target this year, PL will literally pay me $75k less for the year than if I had the exact same target and sales under our previous commission structure. This is how PL treats their best salespeople. There is no winning here.
- For Employee Appreciation Day they gave us Maruchan ramen noodles. I wish I was kidding.
- We used to have quarterly trips to Chicago for training and team building. Those are some of my favorite work memories of my entire career. Not only was it a great way for the remote people to feel connected, but the training was always effective and helpful. But the ELT no longer sees those as worthwhile, so those trips don’t happen anymore. I now feel more disconnected from my teammates and the company than I ever have.
- The sales data is a mess. This is critical because this is how the sales people are paid out on commission and bonuses. Even ELT does not fully know how bad the issue is. The overall sales numbers are accurate, which is all that matters to them. However, even a miscalculation being $1 off can literally underpay a salesperson thousands of dollars. We don’t have a way of knowing if our sales numbers are correct or not. It is now mid-June and it still is not fixed.
- At the beginning of the year our sales targets were increased four times. The fourth time was accidentally discovered by one of our salespeople. When brought up to the ELT they basically said, “oops, sorry.” Was our base pay adjusted accordingly even though some salespeople had their annual target increased by hundreds of thousands of dollars without any formal communication or revised compensation agreement? No.
- Mid-level managers have brought up these issues multiple times and yet the ELT refuses to address these things. They say they care, but their actions, or inactions, have spoken louder. And as a result, many sales people, even some of our best, have recently left.
Advice to prospects:
- If you are interested in applying for a job here - don’t. Even if you crush your targets they’ll only take advantage of you the next year and pay you less despite bringing in much more revenue.
- If you have received a job offer from here - turn it down.
- If you already work here - well, you’re probably looking for other jobs already. I have spoken with many individuals on multiple teams here and literally every single one I’ve spoken to is currently looking for a new job.
