StraighterLine Reviews

3.2

44% would recommend to a friend

(29 total reviews)

Matt Hulett

100% approve of CEO

40% positive business outlook

StraighterLine has an employee rating of 3.2 out of 5 stars, based on 29 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The StraighterLine employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Education industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

29 reviews
1.0
Apr 25, 2023

Everyone is tired

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

A lot of team members are great to work with and believe in the mission of straighterline

Cons

•uncertainty within your role as every department has been significantly downsized in the past 12 months (i.e. layoffs) •ceo seems to have clear favorites and it’s obvious who is and isn’t one. Same thing goes for all executive level employees •every person on every team is overworked and under-compensated which is forcing people out •everyone knows they are underpaid. Basically everyone received a 2% raise after not receiving anything last year and there has been a lot of discussion among lower level teammates about salaries because they were all taken by disappointed by our letters •there seems to be a level of thoughtlessness on how money is spent instead of invested in employees through salaries, training, etc (I.e. the marketing team all traveling in January to Atlanta for 1 day, sending employees custom Rubik’s cubes, the mission statement mail thing) •the tactics for people being pushed out were clear. People were given impossible tasks with no clearly outlined goals and set up for failure. It happened multiple times while I was employed across all teams (and is still going on from what I understand) •no room for career advancement •top down micromanagement of employees is tiring

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StraighterLine Response
3y
Thank you for sharing your feedback with us. We do have an incredible team of talented people who are great to work with and also really believe in our mission to help learners reach their college and career goals. We are thankful for each of our dedicated team members. Over the last two years, we have experienced a lot of change, all in an effort to build a company that helps students and our employees succeed. Over the last 12-24 months a few of the things we have done to help build the culture we aspire to include: - Collaborated as a company to develop a new mission, vision, and corporate strategy to lead us forward. - Established clear KPI goals at a company, department, and individual level with input from all levels. - Developed a new set of core values with input from across departments, committing to be purposeful, determined, bold, collaborative, and spirited. - Updated our benefits including unlimited PTO for our exempt employees and an additional week of vacation for non-exempt employees, and (6) weeks of paid parental leave. - Added a Safe Harbor 401K program granting all employees an employer contribution in the amount of 3% of their salary toward retirement regardless of individual contribution. - Initiated a $1,500 referral fee for employees that refer people that are hired for open positions on our team. - Recently promoted several team members to supervisory roles within the company because of their leadership and strong performance. We are proud to have been able to continue to provide bonuses and salary raises across a spectrum of percentages) to our employees amidst a downturn in the economy. And we are currently reviewing all employee salaries and our bonus structure to ensure we are aligned with industry standards. As a company with many remote employees, our teams asked us for opportunities to connect in person. We listened and brought our marketing department together to kick off our new year and new goals as a team. We also mailed each employee a printed copy of our new corporate strategy as well as a fun Rubix cube featuring each of our core values. Those two mailings were a minimal cost and a way that we hope will remind everyone of who we are and want to be as a company. It sounds like you worked hard during your time here. We thank you for your efforts and wish you well in your future endeavors.
3.0
Aug 26, 2022

Purely revenue driven

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Remote work and fair compensation.

Cons

Owned by a PE firm and revenue driven. Their technology and systems are so old and cannot be updated, yet they refuse to invest in a new website, CMS, or CRM (because they need to see black instead of red for sale in a few years) so everyday there are issues that engineers can't solve for or update. The C-Suite (two particular) tends to insulate themselves from anyone beneath them in the org chart which is disappointing. They care more about revenue than the students taking their courses. It's all very disingenuous.

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StraighterLine Response
3y
Thank you for your review. It’s true a great benefit of working here is the flexibility to work remotely. Above all else, the mission to help students succeed is why we are all here. We want to be a place that fosters success for students in their education, in their career and in life. We want this for our employees too. More students succeed when we as a company succeed. We appreciate your honest feedback and commit to do better. Thank you for all of the contributions you have made to help our students. We wish you well in your future.
1.0
Aug 24, 2022

Was a quiet dictatorship, now a loud one

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Most of the people doing the actual work were talented, enjoyable to work with, engaged in helping students, and so creative in the ways they solved problems. The mission to help students was very fulfilling.

Cons

- C-level controls work down to the lowest level, top down decisions for nearly everything - String of incompetent and inexperienced leadership that has come and gone, including the new junior, first-time CEO and her friend she hired as a CGO, even though he doesn't have the experience or qualifications, and it shows in how terrible he is at managing a team, let alone trying and failing to do everyone's job for them - When older leaders left or were pushed out, the ship changed course over and over again with no stability, while each one of them said, "the old leaders didn't know, but now we know what to do" - Leadership kept hiring consultants and agencies to do their thinking while freezing the budget for everyone else, instead of investing it in their people - Shutting people down so they can control the story, so there's basically no open dialog - Siloed work - Product hasn't been updated since before I started, so it was hard to feel good about giving students something so outdated

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StraighterLine Response
3y
I appreciate your honest feedback, and agree the people here are talented, creative and engaged in the mission to help students succeed. I took on the role as a new CEO because I truly believe in the mission. Since I began in March of this year, it's true, we have experienced many changes, and change is difficult. There are many ways we can do better. I want you to know I take your words to heart, and will work hard to better serve our employees and our students. This week I began reaching out to people at every level to open communication and learn from our talented people, how we can make things better. Siloed work is so often a challenge in a remote workforce. I am encouraging our teams going forward to get to know our colleagues across departments and create cross-functional teams to get input because we do better, together. And finally, product is a top priority and we are working to address those needs immediately. Everyone who has worked for us has been an instrumental part of our story. Thank you for all of the contributions you have made to help our students. We wish you well in your future.
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Glassdoor has 35 StraighterLine reviews submitted anonymously by StraighterLine employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if StraighterLine is right for you.