Booking.com reviews

4.1

80% would recommend to a friend

(7,585 total reviews)
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Glenn Fogel

71% approve of CEO

68% positive business outlook

Booking.com has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 7,585 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Booking.com employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Informationstechnologie industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

8K reviews
2.0
May 17, 2018

Run away!

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible shifts Free Lunches

Cons

The previous comments on the London office are sadly true. Management can at best be described as unprofessional or inexperienced and lacking people skills. In many cases though it actually seems they lack basic common sense or humanity. Agents are expected to work incessantly like robots and are judged not by the quality of their work but if they are late a couple of minutes from lunch or they take their break a bit later than schedule because stuck in calls. The company allows 15 minutes of flexibility with the start/end of your shift timing as well as 10 minutes a day off the phone extra for bathroom breaks or any other personal matter. However some London TL's produced a cringeworty video in which it appears that, even though those things are allowed by the company, it's strongly suggested not to be done as it affects "adherence" and at a certain point it was actually hinted people can train their bladders so as not to need the toilet often!!!! Weekly results are posted online and written on whiteboards on the walls for everyone in the office to see what could be seen as "naming and shaming" practice as effectively nothing is done by TL's to assist agents who need improvement. The internal recruitment process is flawed, with very unclear standards and definitely in favour of people who are friendly with management regardless to their actual skills. This is quite sad as there are talented and experienced people in the office who could do a much better job if given the change. Also the company pretends to be open to suggestions however if someone points out that things could be improved or done differently they are branded as having a negative attitude. And let's not even get started on the many errors made by other departments... Toxic environment can describe the place

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Booking.com Response
7y
Thanks for giving us this feedback. We’re making every effort to improve the employee experience. And because management is a big part of that, we’re working more closely with our local managers to ensure they're equipped to lead and support you. This includes strengthening our management capabilities by focusing on development and promotions. You're eligible to apply for a promotion after 12 months in your role with good performance reviews. If you fulfil these requirements, managers cannot refuse your application. But if you're seeing this is not the case, it needs to be reported to your HR Business Partner. When we post weekly results, it’s to show our success as a team. We’re disappointed to hear that it’s being used in a discouraging way for some and we agree that needs to change. Lastly, please continue sharing your feedback and opinions with us. Hearing from you is important to our growth. We encourage everyone to have direct conversations with their manager or HR Business Partner. And another great resource that’s available to you is our confidential 24-hour compliance hotline. Thanks, The People Team at Booking.com
1.0
Jan 25, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Free Lunch (even though food could have been better with the money they got) - Social events - Nice office in a well transports linked area - Extra money when working on week-ends, early, late, etc.. - Good budget for team outings - Good name on the CV - Eyecare voucher and refund

Cons

- Do not expect any progression unless you are from the UK, Eastern Europe, Italy, or Spain. All the seniors and managers are from those listed countries. - When they hire you, they told you there's a possibility to evolve after 9 months in the company, but when the time comes, the manager has the possibility to refuse your application, especially if you are not in his/her paper. - You have to fake everything with everyone if you want to progress - Everything is monitored. If you are finalising an e-mail, and your break has started since 5min but you forgot to change your log-in code, someone will call you to ask to change that. And not always, let's say never in a polite way.. Once, my break was over since 2min and I was in the kitchen, someone called and I missed it, when I came back, the person went to my desk and said something like "next time I call you you better reply" .. Well sorry the coffee machine was busy ! - They are using your weaknesses against you. You will feel like they cares about you, because they want you to confide, but then, they will use it to dismiss you, or to make comments about you with the others team mate or team leader (you can tell by the way suddenly everybody looks at you) - If you are shy, or not in the mood (which can happen sometimes), they will think that you are disinterested and will take you to some training room where everybody can see your (next to the canteen), where it's overwhelmed, and there's someone watching behind your back - Everything is recorded, so whenever you have an issue with someone (staff/partner/client) you should send an e-mail straight away to your team leader otherwise this will be used against you in a meeting. - They can dismiss you after 3 call-in sick, so basically, forgot about having a flu and go to work even if you are dying at your desk. What's funny though, is that if you are the manager friend, you can be sick few times, you won't get any meeting at all. - Colleagues can leave feedbacks to each other, and it's the best way to make issues bigger than what they are. This is used against you, especially when you want to apply to a higher position. - If you worked for the Customer department, you can't apply for a position within the Accommodation department because you know too much. - No general email are sent when there's updates on the procedures (but be sure you will receive some when there's events at the HQ) so you have to follow everything on workplace (Facebook for the company) - On workplace, if you comment something and it is reported, you can get a disciplinary meeting and get dismissed. - We never received our written confirmation that we passed the 6 months probation, after 8 months within the company, only an oral confirmation, and so they used this to fire you whenever they want because there's no proof you passed that probation.. Smart eh ? - If you are not going at every events, be sure there's no progression for you. - Always be sure to have another solution as soon as you think things are getting worse, because you can be fired without further notice, which gives people (sometimes with families) hard times to pay the bills, eat, the time they find something else. If you are fired, you have to go back to your desk, with the manager, and get all your stuff in front of everyone. Lovely. Absolutely not humiliating at all. - If they want to get rid of you, they will, they will find some excuses or some mistakes you did months ago and will used this against you. And obviously, you do not have access to what they have against you. - The company has a huge turn-over, they do not care about people, as they are hiring every week. Not surprise why half of new hires left the company before the end of their probation - Unsocial hours. Sometimes you can finish at 10pm, then start at 7am the very next day, and if you complain, be careful ! you can also work 10 days in a row, and no one will care. - You can not plan having holidays months in advance. You can only book few days for the month coming. Example : In January, you can book days off for March, in February you can book for April, etc etc, but you are usually waitlisted for few days, even weeks ! In July I asked for 4 days in the middle of September, I had the approval for these days the beginning of September, and so the tickets to go home were overpriced. - The Team Leader are mainly external and so not trained on what agents do, they don't know about the software nor the procedure, and have to ask someone else almost everytime. Being a team leader here is just sticking stuff on a board, and having meeting reading powerpoint made by someone else. - The open space is crowded and you do not even have the right to sit somewhere else if it is not your team space. - People are screaming over the phone, sometimes taking of their shoes or eating stinky food at their desk, but that's alright ! - Only 30min lunch (for shift of 8 hours and more you are entitled to one hour break. Here it's 15min break in the morning, 1 hour lunch, 15min break in the afternoon. Obviously you do not choose when are the breaks) - Phone and personal use of the computer are forbidden, except you're a team leader, a senior, or a friend of the management. - Targets are ridiculous. Quantity over quality. - overpriced pension (like 60 per month, then you're a little above the minimum wage, lovely) and you do not even have the choice. - Promotions are random.. Someone from Time Management (the one who calls you if you're not following the good phone code) can become a Team Leader without experience as an agent.

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Booking.com Response
7y
Thanks for taking the time to share this candid feedback. While you may no longer be with us, know that we take the points you've raised very seriously. We want to create a supportive environment where every employee is treated fairly and has opportunities to progress. To do this effectively, we must continually look at ways we can be better. We understand that as we grow, we change, and as we do, we must work even harder to make sure our workplace continues to be somewhere all our employees feel comfortable, confident and inspired. Please be ensured that we are commitment to a diverse and inclusive work enviroment as our workforce consist of an high level divers nationality on every level of the business. We're taking a number of steps to further improve our workplace and actively promoting employee development, including hiring a new Learning and Development Director, making performance management a key focus for the year and revamping our training and development practices. Note that on promotions, manager cannot refuse any applications within the rules and rights. In case this happened, this needs to be reported to HR. These initiatives are important to us and ensure that every team member is being looked after professionally, being treated fairly and are being given the right opportunities. So again, thank you for your feedback – it will help us as we move forward. The People Team at Booking.com
2.0
Jan 5, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Mostly nice and helpful colleagues from all around the world - Opportunity to learn how to work with data and A/B testing on a larger scale - Good salary (for IT department) - Relocation package and help with paperwork etc - Free lunches, snacks, coffee etc. - Parties every month with free drinks (but only company employees allowed)

Cons

- Extreme politics!! You either play the game from day 1 or you're quickly going to be an outcast. - Immature and just plain BAD management, especially on team-level. People get promoted to TL positions just because they've been working at the company a bit longer than others or because of plain favoritism. - Challenging each other goes as far as people at your own level (and not always)! If you try to challenge or argue a point with someone a bit higher than you, you're doomed. Especially if you are a female who tries to challenge a male... good luck with that! - No guidelines, no consistency, no design procedures in place and with 200+ designers working on the same product, CHAOS is what you're going to have to face working there. Only recently the head of design department is trying to create some sort of guidelines and tools for internal use. - Good work goes usually unnoticed and if you don't parade it around to own it, someone else will get the credit for you! Overall... if you have a chance to work here and you're in your early steps in your career, take the opportunity to learn from a large scale organization, get as much as possible and then move on. If you are experienced and looking for value and a less "kindergarten - office - politics" working environment you're better off looking someplace else.

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Booking.com Response
8y
Thank you for your detailed and thoughtful review. We are sorry to hear your frustrations, especially as we can also see that there are elements that you really enjoy about working at Booking.com and that you really want to help us to improve. We are glad to hear that you love working with friendly colleagues from all over the world, indeed, we think having over 150 nationalities bringing unique perspectives is part of what makes Booking.com so special. It's also encouraging to hear that you are enjoying learning how to work with data and A/B testing at scale, it's certainly what excites us. We take your comments about politics very seriously. As you mention our values, you will know that we are focussed on creating an open culture where curiousity is valued and where everyone's opinion can be heard without fear of retailiation. To help make sure that is the case, we'd love to hear more from you on this so please do connect with our Head of People confidentially or if you do not feel comfortable doing so, you can always call our 24 hour confidential compliance hotline. We are also sorry to hear your concerns about management. As you may be aware this is an area that we are looking at seriously across the company and are in the process of rolling out new proccesses for performance measurement and promotion which we hope us to make considerable improvements in this area. We agree that progress and opportunity should be both fair and transparent for everyone. Booking.com should absolutely be a fantastic place to work and we believe we have the right key ingredients. We hope, therefore, that with the help of you and others sharing their feedback, we can tackle any challenges head on and ensure that we are even more focussed on creating the very best experience for everyone who works here. Many thanks, The People Team at Booking.com
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