Come for the free lunch, leave when you see that Speed Does Not Always Win. - Marketing Tripadvisor Employee Review

2.0
May 18, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

As with most of the reviews here: fairly competitive compensation, robust benefits package, great HQ space for employees, a genuine passion by the employees for the brand, a strong corporate philanthropy program and there are some supremely talented individuals in the company that are a pleasure to work with.

Cons

- Global company that acts local and insular. Decisions are driven out of Needham with little strategic consideration for the international offices or the territories in which we have a presence. There are a few senior leaders who have "global" responsibilities in their title that rarely travel to offices outside of Needham. - There is so much pivoting that we are all dizzy from doing a 180 based on the latest change of direction. We are a global company in the digital space that has to be nimble and flexible for the marketplace, but there has to be some discipline in how we think about product and marketing or you start heading to the land of inertia. It is no wonder the company is struggling for the past few years. The CEO often talks about playing the long game but we don't stay focused on a strategy, there is no real roadmap (it changes every week) and the words "strategic planning" don't exist. The process and hoops you have to jump through to do the right thing and drive the business is numbing. - Speed wins is the company motto but the CEO and key executives do not embrace "speed wins" when it comes to the HR process, performance reviews, merit increases or bonus payouts. It is an archaic, bureaucratic, political -- and from what I have seen something of a capricious and arbitrary process that does not value the employees who have allowed TripAdvisor to thrive. Perhaps management only receives their compensation rewards and merit increases after the employee review process is completed and the employees have received theirs. - Promotions are difficult to achieve for talented employees as management can be opaque on promotions and the process for promotions. - Turnover is rampant across most areas but especially in marketing. The organization at large does not seem to understand or value marketing or publicity - other companies that do value marketing and PR such as Priceline, Expedia, Trivago and Google are eating our lunch in a space where we should be dominating across the board. There are some brilliant marketing and PR professionals at TA who have been hamstrung by an organization who naively thinks that consumer behavior can be changed if you put a home page pop up message telling the consumer what TripAdvisor thinks it should do.

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Tripadvisor Response
9y
Thank you for your extensive review and for honoring one of TripAdvisor’s core values, transparency, by sharing your feedback. You are clearly someone who cares tremendously about our success, our products and your colleagues. You’ve mentioned frustrations in a number of areas and I believe an in-person conversation would be beneficial for both of us. I invite you to reach out to me directly to schedule time to meet. Unfortunately, due to the confidential nature of topics such as our marketing, product and content strategies, Glassdoor is not a forum in which I can discuss them. We do provide many opportunities to learn about and discuss our strategy (management synch-ups, town halls, Q & A sessions etc) and I encourage you, and all employees to participate in these sessions as much as possible. I appreciate your comments about ensuring that all global employees have exposure and access to leadership. As is true with any global company, having employees located in many different offices presents unique challenges. As our global team grows and evolves, we are continuously working to improve our communication methods, programs and balance of global leadership. Regarding our performance review process, we recognize that this has historically been an opportunity area for us. We spent a considerable amount of time at the end of 2016 conducting employee focus groups to hear firsthand suggestions and feedback in this area. As a result, we’ve introduced Quarterly Connect conversations, which we rolled out earlier this year, and we will have a totally revamped appraisal process for year-end (which was previewed in training late last year). I encourage you to connect with your HR business partner with questions or feedback about the new process. Thank you again for your comments and as I mentioned earlier, my hope is that we can continue this dialogue in person.

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Tripadvisor Response
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Tripadvisor Response
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