Don't be fooled, it's not what you think it's going to be - Anonymous employee Trek Bicycle Employee Review

1.0
Dec 28, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great discounts on bikes and accessories

Cons

Work life balance, double standard, elitist mentality, zero accountability from upper management and the decision makers from corporate. This review would have stayed internally within the company had an exit interview been given, however because Trek Bicycle feels that they do not need to reach out and inquire about things that went wrong, ask for words of advice, questions about leaving, etc shows how disconnected they really are about providing a "Great Place to Work". They are more concerned about showing the polished diamond of working for their company without acknowledging the mountain of crap that needs to change internally. Investments, something Trek has a hard time doing for their retail employees. When you are staffing your stores at 2 people throughout the day and you have countless amounts of customers leaving because they can't get helped it has a negative effect, who knew? The store is held accountable, not upper management who decided it was a good idea to staff a skeleton crew. And when you have an internal service team coming out to visit stores asking "where is all your staff?" and then saying that every store is like that? Is that sustainable? But don't worry, you'll then be asked to hold off on ordering items for your replenishment to the store on Mondays because management doesn't want to stress out of the warehouse workers due to overwhelming amounts of orders. But then that store is held accountable for not having product on the walls. Trek is oblivious to what works in stores and can't invest into figuring out what works and what doesn't. The decisions seem to all come from the same people in HQ who have been with the company for years and are a part of the "Inner Circle". Listen to your retail employees because that's where good ideas are birthed. Trek is afraid to spend money in the areas you need to, employees. When you treat employees like "family" amazing things can happen. There are many issues to talk about and one that rings very clearly is the management in the retail sector. This group of individuals operate with the elitist mentality, well obviously they all have worked with trek for 5+ years so of course their way is the correct way of doing things. Maybe when you were just a dealer and selling to individual shops but when you own retail stores its very different. Don't think you know everything because you've been in the industry for so long. Maybe they are just realizing that operating a store and all the costs that come attached with that are costing a lot of money and they didn't properly budget for it. Speaking of budgets, don't expect your budget to be anywhere close to perfect nor have any changes made due to somebodies negligence to properly budget for something but then you take the heat for it. Turnover is a sad reality for Trek and it's no surprise because they do nothing to keep good employees and have no retention plans or any sort of growth for development. Working for Trek may seem like a dream come true and it may be for a few months, however don't be fooled. This is a very dysfunctional work environment that operates impulsively, can't own their own mistakes, rather cut savings instead of investing in resources to do the job better, puts employees in a fear mindset, instability in directive. I do not recommend working for Trek.

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5.0
Jun 27, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great culture, decent work like balance

Cons

No room for growth, bike industry is going down hill

1.0
Feb 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people you work with are awesome. If you don't make some lifelong friends here, you're probably doing something wrong.

Cons

A few years ago, there was a change at TREK. It didn't happen quickly, but the culture started to change as the industry started to return to pre-covid business. Many of the people that helped shape TREK's amazing culture started to leave. Those that stayed endure brutal layoffs and report to people that now exist in their positions only for their own self-interest. You have to understand that TREK was not a company that many people used to leave. The direction of the company feels uncertain. Leadership seems to care little about retaining long term employees. They have let so many people go in different fields that a lot of day-to-day operations seem to slow down. Purchasing customers also led to a major shift in how the company runs today. It's much less calculated, and directional changes in how the company operates seem to happen with no notice and with poor planning. TREK will eventually find it's path forward, but it's doing so at a steep cost - the loss of dedicated and loyal employees that were there for the mission and future of the company. They brought integrity, (real) brutal honesty and vision for what the company could be. The only thing keeping TREK in it's market leading position today is simply how poorly the rest of the cycling industry is doing right now.

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