Salesforce is better at buying outside talent than it is at developing its own people which is why there are so many boomerang employees. People leave to get the experience they need to go to the next role they want. There are no formal performance reviews meaning being promoted to your next role is very subjective depending on whether or not your leadership team likes you. Additionally, for the all the talk about showing up to work and embracing your authentic self, at the end of the day all anyone cares about is how you show up on a dashboard which incentives people to log things they did not do sometimes to an absurd degree like someone logging that they worked 70 hours a week every week for a quarter and then getting an award for most hours logged.
Relatedly there is a huge emphasis placed on managing your personal brand. If you come from a cultural background where you are taught to do your best work day after day and expect that to be noticed in merit of itself, you will be disappointed working here at least in the sales organization. You have to have the desire to talk about yourself a lot and be a self promoter.
Lastly, I want to share something I personally observed while working here. In my first sales team which was predominantly white, we had one female person of color on the team. She was exceptionally hard working, eager to learn, and dedicated to her job. Management and her colleagues did not support her in the way that was needed for her to reach her full potential. Moreover I believe they made work difficult for her in an effort to push her out of the organization. I never understood why. Maybe she didn't fit a type that her team was looking for. She later left to join another company where she is, unsurprising to me, doing very well. I would have thought that retaining and supporting talented employees of all backgrounds would be a priority but especially employees of color given how much Salesforce as a company talks about diversifying its workforce.
