I've been holding off leaving this review because difficult periods happen, but the lack of course correction made me want to share in an attempt to get this in front of leadership, and I've been encouraged to do so by my peers. The sales org has been trending in a really concerning direction. Obviously any company values growth, and aggressive expansion is the name of the game right now for Glassdoor. This isn't inherently negative, but the org seems woefully unprepared and inexperienced in how to make that happen. Glassdoor has been incredibly successful for a long time, which seems to have caused the majority of the reps, managers, and directors to be more in the mode of order taker, much more reactive than proactive. This time of year is historically slower, but now that targets are much higher, there is little to no guidance, resource-sharing, or strategizing from the top down. The only thing that anyone has seen is a continuous "do more" in regards to digging up new business and generating an unrealistic amount of leads, which seems to be a poorly veiled way for the directors to soften the blow and their own accountability for the inevitable rough landing this quarter will bring. In a heavy renewal and account management role with many different things on our plate, the team was struggling to consistently bring in 2 fresh leads a week, so the response was to triple that number up to 6-7 rather than investigate why that's the case. Let's not kid ourselves: prospecting and building relationships takes time, and many of the conversations we're having now will likely start to benefit us next quarter. Knowing our aggressive expansion plans (which are relayed in every single town hall, meeting, or casual dinner), and that this time of year is difficult, why was this not a priority last quarter? The sentiment that I've heard from multiple managers is that the reps are coddled and not doing enough, which is a really unprofessional way to say the quiet part out loud. These same folks have carried you for years far past your targets, the least you could do is meet them with the grace they deserve, and lift them up and inspire them to do better. It's also no secret that folks are being paid less for overachieving, goalposts are continually moved further away with quota, and account transitions were the worst I've seen in a long time. The very worst part about all of this is the fact that Glassdoor professes to be an expert on transparency, retention, and employee experience, and yet I have heard no genuine acknowledgement of the challenges or struggle that's going on, just a desperate pushiness to do more. One of our managers shared that we're moving towards tracking meetings, emails, and activity, WHICH IS THE TYPE OF BEHAIVOR THAT GLASSDOOR WAS FOUNDED TO HIGHLIGHT AND WARN JOBSEEKERS ABOUT. Our quota changes from monthly contract value to quarterly contract value is also seeming to cause friction, and now we're being told that we need to prioritize the old model as it's what important to the business, even though we're no longer measured that way. Taking away our contribution from running (previously sold deals that are still benefiting the org) can really only be seen as a way to ensure our success doesn't last too long, and that we'll need to push even harder every single quarter. You can't have it both ways where you take away our $ from previous deals, but also make us sell in a way that isn't consistent with our quota. Without a culture to pride itself on, Glassdoor will just become a vehicle to generate $ for our parent company. There are plenty of places that do that, but there's only one Glassdoor.
