Smoke and mirrors - Anonymous employee Gusto Employee Review

2.0
Mar 28, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great product that customers love. Core values are inspiring. Silicon Valley darling. Some pretty cool people although more and more leaving.

Cons

"Humans are not resources". Funny that the biggest mantra at the company that the leadership and everyone else who's drowned in the cool aid preaches on the regular yet that's exactly how they treat their own employees. If you can make it through their rigorous Interview process, congrats. You're part of the "lucky 1%" who apply and end up joining. The company does a great job of making you feel like you're joining a "family" but after your first couple of weeks, your "family" is already too busy welcoming the next batch of new hires to care about you. If you don't start working on some highly visible projects, you'll be seen as not contributing and likely start getting flagged as a replaceable resource. The amount of Stanford nepotism at the company is insane. Good luck moving up the ranks if you didn't go to Stanford for undergrad or get an mba there. Pretty much 99% of the young leadership went there and it's disgusting how high their noses are sometimes. There are way too many smart people there doing mindless work just for the company name. Morale is incredibly low across multiple teams but their managers aka PE's (people empowerer) get them to truck along with the false promise of switching teams and taking on more responsibilities. The term "PE" is a joke. They don't empower you to do anything. If you saying anything negative about the work you're doing or the company, you'll get shunned from your "family". Don't believe the 5-star reviews on here. They're likely all from the HR team or written by new hires in their first week since that's one of the to dos when you join. Seriously? I'm glad there are more and more honest reviews on here since the company doesn't actually care about their employees. They work you day and night and on weekends without any remorse. The ceo has openly said he doesn't believe in work life balance because if you love your job, there's no difference. If you're looking at joining this company, be sure to bring up all the negative reviews you read here and vet them as much as they vet you. My biggest regret is not doing that when I interviewed.

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Gusto Response
10y
Thanks for the feedback about your Gusto experience. We highly encourage team members to reach out to the People team if their PE is not effectively guiding them to be engaged & impactful at Gusto. We agree that more can be done related to career growth and mentorship, and are continually building out resources (like the recently introduced levels with attributes, and formal performance development process). It is a work in progress, which we hope will over time will get better at helping each Gustie grow. While some team members have attended Ivy League schools, many have not; it is not a requirement in hiring Gusties nor is it involved in the promotion process. In the spirit of continuous improvement, new team members are asked to provide interview feedback on Glassdoor while it’s fresh in their minds (both what was compelling, and what should be made better); it is not a company review request since there isn’t enough context in a few days to provide feedback.

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Cons

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2.0
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Pros

The product is genuinely good, too bad the same can’t be said for how they treat the people who sell it.

Cons

Leadership talks a big game about people-first culture but the reality doesn’t match. The Chicago office expansion felt like a poorly thought-out experiment, new hires were brought on without a clear long-term commitment, and layoffs came without warning, leaving people blindsided. Crossing a billion dollars in revenue and still cutting employees sends a clear message about where workers rank on the priority list. Remote work flexibility is also a glaring weakness. For a company selling HR software to modern businesses, their internal stance on where employees can work is surprisingly rigid and hypocritical. The “flexibility” messaging is mostly optics. The broader concern is the AI roadmap. The automation push feels less like an innovation strategy and more like a slow wind-down of the workforce. Employees aren’t blind to it, it creates anxiety and erodes trust. The culture of transparency they promote externally is largely a facade internally.

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