Great people, but questionable leadership - Anonymous Going Employee Review

Great pay + benefits for the small size of team. The retreats are a BLAST- partying, karaoke, pool time, great food, etc and always fun places. With the small team size there's room to make a big impact here and I've met some of my closest friends at SCF/Going. Leaders really listen here, and are open to feedback. Even though we're remote I feel connected to the company. You're also allowed to work while traveling, so you can really embrace that digital nomad lifestyle :)

Gone are the days of being a high growth startup. Unfortunately, company outlook isn't positive and breezy like it used to be- we're more about pinching pennies over here now. We need folks who can put the pedal to the metal and grind- in true startup fashion. In the past, leaders weren't upfront about this and had policies like Flexible Fridays (now that policy is gone because people abused it) and had lofty goals that were impossible to reach but also tied employee bonuses to the goals. Sometimes it seems leadership is blindly throwing darts, trying to get something to stick that can make us money in addition to our subscription model. The unlimited PTO can be nice but its hard to get stuff done quarter to quarter when people are on vacation all the time. When the goal is to launch something in a quarter, and most of the team involved is taking several weeks PTO during that time, the timeline is hard to achieve. Some managers seem to just approve PTO, even if it conflicts with important launches + dates. In addition, there are always a dozen fires weekly to put out on the engineering side and not enough investment in our tech to prevent fires from happening later.

Used to be a positive, mission-driven place to work that prioritized people. They valued employees, allowed flexible working schedules/arrangements, offered nice perks, and host team retreats 2x a year. They did, and continue to value members (mostly the paying ones), helping thousands travel and experience the world.

The recent reviews are accurate, and unfortunately the negatives outweigh the positives. One of their four missions is "Be human", yet they consistently undervalue and treat their employees as disposable. It's not uncommon to be let go out of the blue with no notice, prior warnings of poor performance, or opportunity to improve. The meeting is cold, impersonal, and honestly, distasteful for such a small company that claims to care about people. Leadership/Management is a mess. Initiatives and organization across the company are highly dysfunctional and inconsistent, yet there is no accountability. Further, employees are often promoted to People Managers despite no previous experience, leaving the direct reports to suffer (ultimately being let go) for the lack of direction. The culture has become toxic. What used to be a niche startup in the travel space that hired amazing people who were good at what they do. This is how they retained and attracted talent, but as employee work life satisfaction has been on a steady decline, it's now just something they use for marketing. Making rank in "Top Remote Places to Work " used to be a point of pride for the company, but as you can see, they no longer make the cut.