The first major con should be roundly apparent from reading positive reviews. “No Cons!!” Believe me, there are Cons. We have hemorrhaged talent in the last two years (I will float some ideas why a bit why lower down), and responded with questionable hiring decisions. While there are few, if any, hard-charging bullies and alpha-types at Glassdoor, there are many obsequious and uninquisitive employees.
The long term incentive plan (“LTIP”) is probably broken. Coronavirus has exposed how the incentive scheme as structurally uncredible. Personal performance is uncoupled from our business performance. That's how it's supposed to work, perhaps. But even aside from coronavirus, the LTIP is confusing and probably broken, with lower grants occurring after higher performance ratings, ostensibly due to some sort of adjusted coefficient nested into the grant calculus. My manager was not able to explain the LTIP to me during my performance review. I felt bad for her.
I was in a meeting a few weeks ago, part of which my husband overheard. He later told me, “I think I know what mansplaining is now…” I laughed. It’s true. Meetings often do sound like a fact auction, with enthusiastic participation by men talking over each other. Speaking of meetings, there are too many of them. Rare is the meeting with any kind of agenda or plan. It happened once a while ago; I remember that meeting. Meetings are constantly called, often ad hoc, and sometimes after work has been completed, because those involved have to figure out what was done and why. Often we will reprise a meeting the next day because the previous meeting solved nothing. It’s a negative feedback loop.
It’s not clear what Product is doing or is supposed to be doing; they come across as some kind of wannabe C-suite. The decisions about what Glassdoor's products look like and feel like seem to grow out of wishful thinking, or caricatures of job seekers that don't generalize.
My manager told me in my last performance review that the reason I was not promoted was “politics.” When I asked her what I could have done to earn a promotion (or just a high rating), she mumbled something about visibility. That was disappointing.
