TNTP reviews

3.6

63% would recommend to a friend

(182 total reviews)
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Tequilla Brownie

55% approve of CEO

45% positive business outlook

TNTP has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 182 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The TNTP employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

182 reviews
2.0
Aug 18, 2015

A cog in a machine

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-You may be on the road a lot, but the flexibility of working from home when you aren't on the road is an amazing perk that can't be overstated. -Benefits are generally really good as well, although sadly on a downward trajectory. -The bar for the quality of work is generally really high. After a while at TNTP, it is easy to forget that in most work environments, the majority of your colleagues aren't are smart, competent, motivated and articulate.

Cons

In terms of overall direction, the organization has been going through a painful reorganization and feels rudderless. However, this might be short-term pain, while TNTP's biggest cons are rooted in its culture. There is a major gap between how little TNTP shows it values its employees, and how much management constantly talks about how much employees are valued. Senior management clearly works for a different company than the majority of the staff. The hypocrisy between what TNTP preaches as human capital management consultants, and what TNTP practices internally is pretty astounding. A couple of examples: As most reviewers have noted, work-life balance is a serious and perennial problem. Management periodically pretends to care, offering up incredibly lame, ineffective "solutions," (e.g. a series of "tips" on how to work more efficiently). The subtext of these initiatives is always (1) some people like working all the time, so if you don't, the problem is really you, or (2) you're probably just inefficient. Thankfully, these meaningless gestures never seem to last longer than a few weeks. "You are ultimately responsible for your own career growth" is the message explicitly communicated to employees. This is a convenient way of offloading responsibility for developing staff onto employees. Ironically, TNTP touts the career opportunities and professional development it offers professionals...but they only apply to a small portion of the staff. Career opportunities are very political. When they are not about good politicking, they are pretty much luck of the draw, dependent on whether or not you get staffed on a project that is high-profile. It is impossible to truly "own" your own development when you get no say on what you work on. No amount of trainings or PDs attended will actually further your career at TNTP; you need to demonstrate that you have already done the work of the position at the next rung on the ladder. (BTW, nothing you've done prior to your employment at TNTP to fulfill this is considered valid.) I strongly believe that poor opportunities are a huge contributor to employee turnover, and personally know numerous employees who have left in frustration over stagnant career growth.

1.0
Apr 20, 2020

Culture gets more hypocritical every day

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I love working with many of my colleagues. A lot of really smart hardworking people work at TNTP. I feel truly blessed to have worked with some of the people I have worked with.

Cons

A lot of those smart hardworking people are being taken advantage of. Face it, TNTP does not practice what it preaches. We know about how to run organizations well and how you should treat staff, we tell clients about it all the time, but our own practices are so bad and leadership keep making the same mistakes over and over again. Salaries and benefits are mediocre and it still seems like we always need to tighten the belt more. The executive team constantly pretends to staff that things are more OK than they are and comes up with all kinds of doublespeak to justify all the decisions they make behind closed doors. Because we were 100 per cent remote even before COVID you don’t know if what you are hearing from your supervisors is what other people are hearing. Even after changing to how management works, managers have too much power over the career pathways of their direct reports. The goals process is such a waste of time because your evaluation is still going to come down to your relationship with your manager. Communication is very inconsistent and at times dishonest. Just say you need to lay people off for financial reasons instead of isolating individual staff members and making their lives so miserable that they quit, and then filling the roles with temps or not at all. Leaders are also awful at responding to criticism and go on about how employees need to demonstrate “TNTP core values” by being good sports and putting up with bad policies or mistakes. “Extending grace” gets mentioned a lot but mostly when leadership wants the rank and file to forgive them for a mistake, while expectations placed on staff in return are unreasonable. Flexibility of working from home is meaningless if you are just working all the time. I would understand if it were an accepted part of the culture, but don’t pretend like you care about not burning out your staff and then burn them out anyway. Just be honest.

3.0
Sep 3, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people are amazing, very driven and invested in the organization's mission to help all students get a great education. The leadership is strong and they talk a good game on work-life balance and supporting staff development, but it's not always realized in practice. Many staff work from home, which I really appreciate, but just know that it can be isolating at times and also it's hard to stop working...ever. There are good opportunities for growth for some, but not all employees (even those who do well in their roles) because more senior staff do tend to stick around a long time and there doesn't seem to be a real focus on helping talented people transition to new roles outside their core experience area when there are no growth opportunities within their current departments.

Cons

The organization has always been adaptive, but the pace of change over the past few years has been disorienting and at times demoralizing. Long hours are the norm and expected (they tell you 10+/hour days on hiring, but that can often be low) and it can be difficult to unplug. Given how hard we work and how much we care, it can be frustrating to feel like the organization keeps switching gears to keep up with market developments - it makes you feel like all that hard work has been wasted effort. It also feels like they are pushing into new areas of operation because they see needs and business development opportunities, but the expertise to deliver on those is not necessarily in place. The organization is in a really good place right now, but it's hard to predict how this is going to play out (which is why I rated neutral on organizational outlook and would not recommend the organization to a friend). TNTP has a a feedback-intensive culture, but it can be difficult to feel like you're succeeding because the focus is often on areas for growth. One year, I was incredibly worried about my performance (despite working 70-hour weeks for months at a stretch) because I got so much negative feedback. My annual performance review was mixed, saying that I'd met some but not all of my goals. And then I got a large bonus with a note indicating that I was among the very top employees that year. I almost quit multiple times because I felt like I was working so hard and still not succeeding. Don't get me wrong, the tangible bonus was great, but it would be nice if it was accompanied by encouraging words during the year so that I wasn't riddled with anxiety about my performance when I was apparently seen as doing exceptionally good work.

Viewing 4 - 6 of 182 Reviews

Glassdoor has 203 TNTP reviews submitted anonymously by TNTP employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if TNTP is right for you.