Pros
Pros: It is genuinely possible to make a promising career for onself at Wayfair. Constant change means there is no such thing as a normal day, and for the same reason time passes quickly. Even in junior management roles there is immense freedom of action, however expect creativity to be drowned out by overload and repetitive tasks. If you're 'in', you're going to be fast-tracked to greatness. There is huge opportunity to learn a lot of different roles (as well as the challenges of the online retail industry) very quickly. The company's internal reporting is incredibly strong and best of all accessible to all employees. There is both an appreciation of work hard play hard and a strong work/life balance in the company. Even entry level employees (depending on location) can be very empowered. Remuneration 'packages' and on-site perks tempting but overcompensating for a poor salary culture. Employee stock options.
Cons
There is a culture of promoting someone into a position, promising a future pay adjustment and then not observing it yet overloading them with work. A carrot will then be dangled about 'proving oneself' to achieve the role & recognition one should have got in the first place. This is deliberate policy as a cost saving measure. Where opportunities do exist for entry level staff – such as moving into team leader or assistant Manager roles – these have promising staff placed into them on a ‘trial’ basis with little or no feedback on their performance, no payrise, no formal recognition and no formal training. One of the core values of the company is Transparency. It’s like a bad joke. Constant danger of job/scope creep with all the risk and no reward. Culture of promising employees being assigned laterally and then overloaded with work Wayfair is a corporate cult, non-believers are not readily tolerated. Frequently at manager level there are discussions on who is “in”, and who is “out”. Employees who are deemed to not “get it” are quietly deemed to be misfits. At some point in your time at Wayfair you either start drinking the Kool Aid or take the red pill or find yourself completely at odds with the company. Pushback is grudgingly tolerated, while failure to complete all tasks is not acknowledged correctly and is usually blamed on poor time management. In Customer Service – where the bulk of the company's employees work - salaries are uncompetitive at all levels outside of senior Management. There is a major issue with people doing just enough to not get fired and these freeloaders drag back the potential bright stars. In my group, no significant promotions have occurred in over a year despite significant growth. When they do occur, promotions or appointments are not announced which is probably due to guilt over the blatant favouritism displayed in some of the appointments. In fact, this deters many people applying for openings as they are felt to be a foregone conclusion. At ground level you are nothing short of a Unit and deeply immersed in Phone Hell. All schedule deviations are monitored down to the minute and you live and die by your metrics. The position of the company is that it operates a ‘meritocracy’ but as far as most of the employees can tell the company only pays lip service to this and generally uses the concept to its advantage as above. In terms of expectation above junior supervisor, it is genuinely very hard to know what is expected of you. Scope and job creep is a continuous danger and employees are regularly and deliberately overloaded with work, from the bottom up. There is a deliberate policy of understaffing and underresourcing. Employees are not always conscious of all the benefits they are entitled to. Most employees genuinely have no idea if the company has a policy for registering HR grievances, in fact some locations do not have a HR resource. Contracts are not periodically updated to reflect changes in position, roles or salaries. There is very little documentation to outline best practices with troublesome employees. No development plan exists for anyone outside of loose target guidelines in manager roles, and apart from a contribution to further education there is little or no opportunity for formal development in house as all training is job-only focused. The approach to training is best described as “scattergun” and is very reactive. At Managerial level it is absolutely non-existent, you receive no formal training, and gain no transferable skills or certification apart from the experience you are gaining. Unless you are lucky enough to advance and continue doing so you will be at a dead end very quickly. The hiring process is incredibly loose and selection procedures can be poor. There is no policy to proactively manage burnout which is a major issue in the company. The approach to training is best described as “scattergun” and is very reactive.
