Therabody reviews

3.1

39% would recommend to a friend

(176 total reviews)

Monty Sharma

74% approve of CEO

39% positive business outlook

Therabody has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 176 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Therabody employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

176 reviews
1.0
Mar 17, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The only positive thing I can say about this company has less to do with the company and more to do with the people it attracts. I’ve found that Therabody does attract SOME cool, talented people with integrity, but unfortunately, those people are in the minority. Once talented people get in and see that their creativity (regardless of department) gets systematically ignored, suppressed, or dismissed, they leave.

Cons

And before I get started, a quick note to the poor HR person that will likely have to reply to this… I know you're just doing as you're told, but really, please don't bother posting a mealy-mouthed response to this review attempting to profess company "values" when we both know the only thing leadership actually values is profit and self-preservation. Do yourself a favor and save yourself the time and characters.  With that said, LET’S GOOOO. It's a challenge to distill Theragun/Therabody "culture" down to just a few key elements, but I'm going to try regardless. I'd say you should experience it for yourself to really understand. Still, I honestly don't believe anyone should subject themselves to that regardless of how entertaining it might be once you've escaped.  -Cult-like  -Professionally disingenuous leadership  -Strong fire culture  -Heavy amounts of nepotism  -Deference > Autonomy  The people who survive at Therabody are generally the ones who ingratiate themselves to the CEO by allowing him to be right about everything because of who he is (the guy with the trust fund who signs the checks) despite not having a defined area of expertise other than making sure the business stays profitable by any means necessary. He's an armchair social media director, a creative director extraordinaire, master salesman, product developer, an advertising specialist, master of strategy, and UX designer… in his own mind.  Any fledgling process or strategy can be forcefully and immediately abandoned based on his any one whim. When people don't see things how he does, he becomes combative and forces people to defend their knowledge and expertise against his strong but usually ill-informed opinion. The employee then has to weigh out the benefits of defending their work against the possibility of losing the CEO's favor and possibly even their job. Sadly, because most people have to work for a living and don't have a billion-dollar trust fund to fall back on, they usually fall in line instead.  Employees are stymied, dismissed, or ignored, and then oftentimes blamed for their lack of progress and sometimes even let go. In essence, too many employees are set up to fail instead of being supported into success.  This results in mediocre people being elevated to positions of power over more deserving ones because what's being measured is not talent or performance but deference.  Two C-Suite employees act as the CEO's personal consiglieres while professing to be employee advocates. One, in particular, is in charge of one of the most consumer-facing departments despite having a very different work history. But, she was lucky enough to have a connection to someone in the CEO's wealthy-person only networking group and was therefore deemed worthy of what I'm sure is a high-paying position.  She loves to wax poetic about how she enjoys mentoring people and helping them build their careers, but she continually moves goalposts when it comes down to it. She will not hesitate to throw members of her own team under the bus if it means avoiding the CEO's wrath.  The other consigliere is in a position of power over virtually everyone in the company and professes to be an advocate when in reality, she protects the leadership team (despite their sweeping ineptitude) and the institution as a whole. Her guiding philosophy (most likely adapted from the CEO himself) is that anyone would be lucky to work at Therabody, and she treats people accordingly. She has a very "take it or leave it" approach and will generally not negotiate salaries or allow counteroffers if someone gets an outside offer and is looking for Therabody to match it. What's worse is that she's flat out said that Therabody "hires the best person for the job," which is really just a convenient way to get out of having to put actual work into hiring candidates that may be at a societal disadvantage.  The founder and CEO and some of the leadership team are cripplingly insecure about one of their competitors in particular. They are very quick to deride objectively impressive things this other company accomplishes while at the same time rushing to follow in their footsteps. The founder makes a habit out of tearfully addressing everyone in the company-wide meetings about how far the company has come and about how they're "only getting started." Unfortunately, these words and tears become more and more hollow the more they're said, and the more things stay the same. Does the founder cry so often because he knows what the company professes to be is so far from what it actually is? Whatever the reason, perhaps therapy would be beneficial.  In conclusion, if you value authenticity, respect, boundaries, and your work product, Therabody probably isn't the place for you. But, if you’re a masochist, give it a whirl!

2.0
Jan 12, 2021

Toxic Workplace and Toxic Leadership

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The only positive aspect of this place is the awesome people (coworkers) that you get to work with. Everyone is so supportive and understanding. If you end up working here, you will undoubtably befriend some really cool people, but that's mostly a result of all the commiserating you will be doing.

Cons

Unfortunately, my time at Therabody is defined by: - Bullying by leadership (constant scare-tactics and mismanagement) - A fast pace (but NOT the positive, energetic kind) that doesn’t allow any department to make actual progress because everyone is always tripping over themselves - Little-to-no organizational structure that fosters employee support Leadership: The key issue with Therabody lies in its leadership. The CEO is one of the most narcissistic leaders I have ever come across in my professional experience, and prides himself in his scare-tactic management style, by which he chooses a different victim weekly to publicly shame or scapegoat for company issues. Similar to what another review here mentioned, the CEO is very interested in how the company appears to his ultra-wealthy peers, and one text from a rich country-club consumer could result in a re-brand or the firing of a talented contributor. He is the toxic embodiment of an “arm-chair art director” (note: he does not have any creative or artistic acumen), and keeps creative talent within the company from making any actual progress or being cutting edge. Creative is just one component of his micro-management (suffocation) issues, he also makes unfounded claims and rules about marketing/social media and again - keeps people from doing their jobs. Furthermore, from a general leadership standpoint, the CEO is entirely detached from the world of people who have to work for a living. He has a philosophy that people aren’t meant to be promoted. In a company-wide town hall he explained that “you could work for the company for 5 years and never be promoted”, when obviously someone who is around that long is an asset to the company. This total disregard for normal career growth could only come from someone who has never had to worry about their career growth being linked to their livelihood and future opportunities. Additionally, he loves to make people fear for their jobs (yes, he will blatantly tell people they should be scared about sticking around), which creates such a hostile environment. There is another prominent leader in the company (who, due to Glassdoor Community Guidelines, I cannot name or refer to by discipline) who is also a major bully. She puts on a fake smile in meetings and says empty “thank you’s” to the team, but then throws just about everyone under the bus behind their backs. For example, there have been instances of her openly talking about wanting to fire certain people while on video calls with non-leadership team members (just plain AWFUL leadership practice), and trash talking other team members in similar video call scenarios. She talks a big game about being supportive, but when it gets down to it I don’t think she’s ever supported anyone on the team she’s supposed to be leading. Aside from being an outright bully, she is also not good at her job. She makes countless last minute changes and decisions on matters she doesn’t actually understand or take the time to learn about. Also, because the CEO is awful and scary, she does not stand up to him, and allows him to steamroll her department with his ill-informed ideas of what this team should be doing. Due to the pandemic, she was rashly moved into her role very quickly, when she does not have a diverse background in her discipline to inform her new role. There are for more talented individuals at the company (both currently and who were let go due to the pandemic) who could do this job 1000x better. Fast Pace: “Ability to thrive in fast-paced environment” is a line in just about every job posting ever these days; we’re in an always-on digital world, so this makes sense! But a Therabody, it isn’t your typical startup energy fast-paced, its a toxic tornado. There is such a lack of tact done with certain things because speed is valued over everything. Everything is decided by leadership last minute, whether it’s product launches, campaign launches, ambassador launches etc., and it causes everyone to trip over their own two feet and hinders people from doing their best work. In short, they take work that should be done over the course of 2-3 months and slave-drive their employees to get it done in a matter of weeks. Yes, every company and every professional role will have their share of late nights and fire drills. But at Theragun/Therabody, there are ONLY late nights and fire drills. No employee support: Throughout the interview process, I was told this was a company that valued work life balance, but I never once experienced this in my time at Therabody. Much of this has to do with leadership’s last minute decisions/changes, and unattainable quick turnarounds. The only reason you might hear about work/life balance in your recruiting process is because the (lovely) People Operations team are probably the only people in the entire company who have that (because interviews don’t happen at 12am or on Christmas). But if you’re not looking for a role on the People Ops team, expect to pull all-nighters and work on major holidays regularly. Similarly to what I touched on re: the CEO above, this company does not offer internal growth or any sort of support or regard for career trajectory. They have no formal annual review process, and enter most informal annual reviews with the party line that “we’re still working on formalizing our company-wide review process right now, so we won’t be able to offer you any promotion or compensation increase at this time”. Pretty much, unless you are a favorite of one of the horrible leaders and therefore have their recommendation for a promotion, you will not get due process when it comes to common professional growth practices. What is so ironic is that this is a health and wellness company, and yet they still do not truly value or prioritize the mental or physical health and wellness of their employees. It’s actually laughable, because they started scheduling weekly 15 minute mindfulness/meditation seminars led by the founder, but everyone’s videos are off because no one can actually take a 15 minute break at this company. Conclusion: If you read all the way through this, you can probably guess, but this company fosters a lot of anxiety, instability and self-doubt. If you are a self-respecting, talented person, I advise you look elsewhere on your job search. HINT: the only reason they are hiring is because it’s a revolving door!

avatar
Therabody Response
5y
Thanks you for your feedback. First, we are sorry to hear that you felt you were unable to discuss your concerns and frustrations with the right team at Therabody. As a fast growth company we are always looking to solicit employee feedback on what we can do better for them. Therabody has tripled in size each year since our first, fully operational year in 2017 With growth of that size, our team members are constantly challenged with new opportunities every day. This type of pace and growth can be difficult to navigate for many highly skilled employees. We are always looking to solicit employee feedback on what we can do better for them. We have made a concerted effort to expand our HR operations and implement employee engagement tools to solicit regular feedback. In addition to weekly pulse surveys, we have twice yearly review cycles which the entire company participates in. During these reviews we gather self, peer and manager feedback for every employee. The outcome of these reviews often result in promotions, raises and bonuses; while some result in necessary conversations about performance, opportunities for improvement or simply identifying someone is not a fit. Outside of our formal review times, Therabody has a philosophy that promotions or raises can occur anytime throughout the year. We see a tremendous amount of value in recognizing our employees in real time. As a merit-based organization it is not unusual for us to promote an employee in under a year of time. We hope that employees can feel comfortable sharing what leadership styles inspire their best performance and what doesn’t. We understand that certain communication styles aren’t effective and we are always working to improve. We have identified areas of professional growth within our leadership, organizational structure, and we are putting programs in place to help our leadership further develop the right tools to effectively communicate with employees. The type of behavior you mentioned is not consistent with Therabody’s Core Values and is not tolerated. Employees with concerns of this nature have many avenues to express them, to their managers or any member of leadership, to a member of the People & Talent team, our anonymous Employee feedback form, or any way they feel most comfortable. We are hopeful that current and future employees will feel comfortable using one of these avenues so that we can look into their specific concerns and take any appropriate steps to address them.
1.0
Mar 15, 2020

BEWARE SINKING SHIP

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

None - don't waste your time.

Cons

Hands down the worst CEO to work for. He only cares about his trust fund and how he can flex in front of his "rich" buddies. He has no qualms about being verbally abusive and going on irrational tirades. No one respects him and we feel sorry for him. Most of "upper management" has been terminated because he thinks he can do their jobs. It's a toxic "non-corporate" corporate culture where layoffs are the norm and everyone is on edge. Employees are sucked dry and left to bleed. Don't get conned by an ego driven, emotional, man child who claims to be a "leader." The only thing he "leads" is a sinking ship.

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Glassdoor has 184 Therabody reviews submitted anonymously by Therabody employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Therabody is right for you.