REI reviews

Complete lack of strategic plan. They have asinine goals like "gain X-many new members" but no actual strategic plan on to get there. Harassing customers endlessly when they walk in a store is not a durable growth strategy. Sorry. When teams fall short leadership doesn't take any accountability and lay off hundreds of people. In 2023 the business fell short of target a whopping 17%, store employees unionized, and leadership scores from internal surveys were lower than I've ever seen at any company. For some reason the board keeps Eric Artz, Ben Steele, and Kelly Hall in their positions. REI used to be such a great company and I hope that one day someone will be able to save it but for now, I suspect it won't be around for all that much longer. The pay for anyone in tech-roles is also quite low. Lower than industry standards.

Senior leadership is completely out of touch with employees and this is reflected by the slumping sales. For HR, new CPO has uprooted org structure, without taking a moment to listed to the people actually doing the work. In fact, it wasn't even her, it was a consulting firm she hired. She has demolished teams only to hire her buddies from past companies who she creates new jobs for - while completely overlooking excellent tenured internal talent who are equally, if not more, qualified for the roles. "HR Retreats" consist of Hunger Games-like polls on departmental HR performance.