Good place gone terribly bad. - Manager Chamberlain Group Employee Review

1.0
Mar 25, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay is decent, but only after bonuses are paid (if you're a manager and above). Lots of free food on the counters - leftovers from the daily lunch meetings. If you like meetings, you will be in them constantly. Free Arlington Park Racecourse tickets.

Cons

Toxic culture where negativity and hating all ideas and people is nurtured and rewarded. This used to be a good place to work - one where you felt your coworkers were pulling on the same side of the rope to accomplish goals. However, after the Newell Rubbermaid throngs started sieging the castle, the culture has disintegrated into a backstabbing, negative melee. Direction constantly changes yet is rarely communicated in a timely manner. New Product quarterly meetings take on an abusive quality to them as senior leadership essentially shoots at the feet of the presenters to watch them dance and are sometimes quite literally driven to tears. If you are new and/or from Newell or Black and Decker, you are safe from tribal. However, if you've worked there more than a few years, you are labeled as old and unwilling to change. The truth is, many people that worked there prior to the current CEO craved change and welcomed it, but were labeled right off the bat by the army of incoming Newellies. Sales meetings are nothing more than a 4-day homage to the order takers in the field, culminating with a senior staff member making many off-colored and slurred remarks to the often-stunned audience, who are forced to stand, clap, sit and repeat more than 3 dozen times in an evening. Work-life balance is terrible. Many senior staff members take it upon themselves to send barely-legible emails at all hours of the night and weekends with unreasonable requests. The stress level for the average employee is through the roof, as you are constantly kept on-edge. It seems the more abusive a manager is to his/her employees, the more awards he/she will be presented with.

Explore other reviews about Chamberlain Group

5.0
Mar 12, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

People are helpful and work well together

Cons

Pay could be a little more competative

1
3.0
May 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Chamberlain is a highly variable place to work. Everything depends on what team you are working on. Some teams will have managers who will fight for you and help build you up, others not so much. I have more or less grown up with the company and have seen it go from being owned by a private family to being owned by Blackstone and all between. Every year I ask myself, "is this the year I leave". My answer is usually no, as where else will be better when I am at least in a good position? Summer fridays are pretty great though.

Cons

Yearly reorgs are a constant drag. Some of the most CG-blooded people I have ever known are somehow always the first to get sent to the wood chipper. People flail around and react. There is no forward thought. Just constant reaction to whatever words the executive population utters. We have been 'transforming' for the near decade I have worked here. But what are we even transforming to? All I have seen is us transforming into yet another soulless company. Benefits have been getting crushed. My wonderful and amazing 401k service contribution was ripped away and replaced with a far less beneficial amount. If you aren't on a good team, or have a good manager, your chance for advancement will be near impossible. Constant 'do more with less'

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