Possibly the worst company in Hospitality - Anonymous employee NextGuest Employee Review

2.0
Nov 21, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some very talented developers, technology teams, and marketing minds.

Cons

No self awareness at the executive level. Arrogance and intellectual dishonesty are rampant. There is an old boys club mentality in upper management and nepotism is systemic which leads to terrible hiring decisions and unfit employees being moved into positions that they are not qualified for. The effect trickles down to the people in lower positions and creates poor employee engagement. HEBS Digital is a revolving door with the most talented new hires quickly realizing they've been sold a bill-of-goods. The health benefits are some of the worst in the industry and if you are considering taking a position there and have a family, make sure your spouse has good benefits because you will not be able to survive on their terrible health insurance plan. Unless things have changed, it cost close to $2,000 a month to add a dependent to your insurance plan. When I asked about the reason for the high premium, I was told it was because of Obama (this is factually untrue). During my time there, I was "managed" by a direct report who had no management skills or interest in developing their management abilities. They reported to someone who had zero experience in the position and knew nothing about their department (a casual racist, one of a few at the company). I'm sure anyone who works there now or has in the past knows who I am talking about. Weekly happy hours are meant to be fun but end up creating an unsafe and unprofessional environment (especially for young female employees).

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NextGuest Response
7y
Thanks for the feedback – we appreciate it. Regarding the concerns you raise about health insurance, we continuously look for ways to enhance employee benefits. We offer health insurance that includes majority employer contributions to Medical, Dental, Vision, Life and AD&D benefits. Please know that HEBS Digital bears 78% of the Employees premium cost and it is one of the most competitive packages offered in the industry. Our executive and management teams always strive to evaluate and improve everything from daily processes to company policies. We work hard to maintain a respectful and safe environment for all our employees. All activities including Social Hours are completely voluntary. In addition, the executive, management and human resources teams have an open door policy as well as weekly check-ins with all employees. We always encourage everyone to take advantage of this time to voice any concerns. Your observations and concerns help us better understand how we can improve and we welcome the chance to discuss them live. Please feel free to reach out to hrdept@hebsdigital.com.

Explore other reviews about NextGuest

5.0
Mar 2, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Great experience if you're looking to learn about digital marketing and take on a heavy load of complex projects.

Cons

- Lack of organization from leadership team. - Empty promises from management - Hit really hard by COVID-19

3.0
Jul 17, 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

If this is your first job after college, NEXTGUEST (previously HEBS Digital) is a fantastic company for learning not just digital marketing and hospitality, but also agency processes and best practices. There are some truly talented people across all departments, and if you land in the right circles, you will also have a friendly, tight-knit time in the workplace. You can clearly tell that there are some people in the company who truly care and want to transform it into the top, trendiest digital marketing company for hotels in the world.

Cons

However, despite calling itself a ‘Tech Company’, NEXTGUEST is run via rather archaic internal procedures, tools (ie. QuickBase) and corporate culture. There is no clear vision, mission, or values - even less with the level of changes happening. It seeks the business of the newest, trendiest ‘big dogs’ of hospitality, but simultaneously takes random non-promising clients. It seeks maximum productivity and accountability from its entry-level/associate employees, but consciously saturates their bandwidth paired with empty promises of ‘it will get better’. Unless you started in the company before the change in leadership, you will likely be under-payed for your position, for the city, and for the actual work. For example, you will witness multiple cases of entry-level/associates employees doing the exact same, if not more work than their managers and even supervisors. Yet, this is masked under miscommunications and counter-productive internal procedures.

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NextGuest Response
6y
Thank you for your review, which we highly value. We appreciate hearing about your personal experience and are glad to learn that you like the learning experience and working together with our talented colleagues. We always strive to improve our internal procedures and tools and our technology team works very hard to provide our clients with cutting-edge technology making us stand out in hotelier ad-tech. Please find our mission statement and values on our website. Our rebranding helped us to better communicate what we stand for. Thank you again for your detailed feedback.
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