Poor Work Life Balance and Bad Culture - Anonymous employee PepsiCo Employee Review

2.0
Apr 10, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They really are an equal opportunity employer. No discrimination--if you meet the right requirements and are willing to move wherever they want you to. Compensation is good.

Cons

In most non-warehouse positions, if you have a cellphone you are essentially on-call. The culture does not allow for a good work-life balance. Long-time employees wear it as a badge of honor instead of realizing that the workplace doesn't need to be like that. It's almost like they think that poor communication between departments, bad attitudes in house, the constant phone calls is something to be proud of, not something that needs to be fixed--like they walked up-hill both ways and you should too. The workload is that of 1 1/2-2 people easily--across the board in essentially every department. Everyone you talk to is incredibly busy, stressed-out, and tired. Headquarters is more interested in decreasing costs to increase share value than they are about the front line employee. They used to have annual employee parties to thank the employees, now the managers get in trouble for taking their teams out to lunch once a year. The poor customers are stuck in the middle--their front line rep can't give them the attention they would like because their territories are too large. The customers used to see the same delivery driver, but that changed as well. Customer service as a whole has gone out the window. There are few gems in each department, but you can see it on their faces that they are getting close to the breaking point where they just physically can't care as much anymore. It's a top-down problem. A huge culture change needs to happen or they are going to lose all of their talent.

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Pros

good benefits, good pay rate

Cons

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4.0
May 6, 2026
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Pros

Worked for PepsiCo for 10 years across four locations in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Florida. Gained experience in multiple sales and operational roles while supporting account growth, merchandising, and customer relationships. Florida locations were especially well-operated and efficient. PepsiCo provided competitive pay, solid benefits through Keystone, and a good vacation package compared to competitors in the beverage industry. The company also offered strong sales incentive programs, earning rewards such as Orlando Magic floor seats, Pro Bowl tickets, Apple Watches, and Yeti cups for exceeding performance goals and driving sales results.

Cons

While PepsiCo promotes internal growth opportunities, many promotions and leadership opportunities appeared to favor college internship hires over long-term internal employees. In some cases, newer college-based management pushed corporate initiatives without fully understanding local market realities or account volume trends. For example, innovation products were sometimes forced into low-volume accounts where sell-through was unrealistic. Operationally, certain delivery processes could be improved, particularly with Tropicana products being stored in coolers on trucks for extended periods, which could impact product quality and increase waste. Work-life balance could also be challenging, as sales representatives commonly worked 50–60 hour weeks. Expectations from corporate leadership were often unrealistic, especially when customer representatives and drivers were expected to fully stock stores while servicing 15+ accounts per day. Experiences could also vary depending on whether locations were union or non-union operated.

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