ESS reviews

3.7

65% would recommend to a friend

(1,485 total reviews)
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Buddy Helton

60% approve of CEO

50% positive business outlook

ESS has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 1,485 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The ESS employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Human Resources & Staffing industry (3.8 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
1.0
Nov 23, 2025

They Don't Actually Care

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lot's of Vacation Days, Sick, PTO, if you ever get to take them - probably won't.

Cons

I worked for ESS on the corporate side after previously serving as a substitute for them, so I saw both ends of the operation. What stood out most was how little support substitutes actually received and how little accountability existed internally. Subs were often sent into classrooms with almost no information, no lesson plans, no guidance, and in many cases were moved around campus without explanation. The upper management doesn't care and discourages any attempts to improve quality, customer experience, support, etc which makes absolutely no sense. On the corporate side, I ran into significant resistance when I tried to improve things for the substitutes. They put people into leadership positions due to them being there for a long time. These people couldn't lead a horse to water. I experienced being berated, racism, and job sabotage for wanting to make improvements to my job and our processes which were broken and no one cared. There was also a dismissive attitude toward substitutes that was hard to ignore. The managers seem to have come there to collect a check and didn't actually care about the students, the quality of service, nothing- lacked basic business/marketing logic. Would rather keep things the same even if the result was counterproductive to their goals. Not to mention the punishment towards those who actually had leadership skills and solutions. HR is buddied up with leadership and doesn't have a clue. False accusations, blatant lies, favoritism, jealousy and bullying ignored. Regional managers can basically say whatever they want regardless of if it's true or not and no one will challenge them. That's what you can look forward to. It's a habit for them based on what I've heard. This company is doomed to fail. They'd better hurry and sell it again before the value goes down tremendously because ESS is in its last days. The company had lots of potential but too many vulnerabilities due to employees being more number focused than people focused. The CEO needs to step down and the whole company needs an overhaul. Those at the very top seem too far removed from what's happening with middle management and middle management will cause them all to lose their investments.

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ESS Response
6mo
Thank you for sharing your feedback and for your years of service with ESS. We take concerns about company culture and support seriously. If you have specific issues you’d like addressed, please reach out to HRHelp@ESS.com so our team can assist you directly.
2.0
Nov 20, 2025

HR Alert

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible schedule LOCAL ONLY managers seemed nice.

Cons

Corporate HR employees are very young and inexperienced. Do not speak professionally and spoke to me as if they were communicating with a peer that they were trying to win an argument. Strange. Did not make any type of support for me and when the ESS employee communicated with a school they didn’t call me to discuss an issue that never happened with me. They threw me under the bus to appear as handling the situation and said I could no longer work at the school. FYI it was my children’s school and the situation was extremely embarrassing and I had no way whatsoever to communicate so I was left to be perceived as doing something wrong. This was after working at the school for 6 years! Extremely poor and unprofessional and lack of experience managing this issue. They didn’t ask me about the situation and just cut me from working at the school. Before this I only ever received excellent reviews and compliments from both students, teachers, and administration. So unprofessional and disappointing!

5.0
Nov 19, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Staying on your child's schedule

Cons

Challenge to get kids to follow directions. Low pay. No benefits.

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ESS Response
6mo
We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to give us your review!
Viewing 64 - 66 of 1,485 Reviews

Glassdoor has 1,852 ESS reviews submitted anonymously by ESS employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if ESS is right for you.