Essendant reviews

2.8

31% would recommend to a friend

(507 total reviews)
avatar

Dave Rickard

22% approve of CEO

15% positive business outlook

Essendant has an employee rating of 2.8 out of 5 stars, based on 507 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Essendant employee rating is 21% below average for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

507 reviews
1.0
Jul 17, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There are none unless your in IT. IT has a well run well oiled machine there with good people in the face of a Business manager on a personal mission to destroy that company from the inside out.

Cons

You can't think for yourself here, and why should you when you have a senior manager who does all your thinking for you? Do this - wrong. Do it this way - wrong. Do it like I told you to do it the first time - still wrong. The goal was always elimination - you misunderstood the clearly stated goal. You become the rat in the cage who's trying to find the cheese but the cheese keeps moving and somehow that's your fault. Until eventually you give up on trying to do any work that has any real meaning and do your best to keep your sanity while being constantly berated, shamed, mocked and ridiculed for your performance. Sometimes amongst a group of other high level employees/managers, sometimes just your group of other mice in the cage also trying to survive. I have been forced to present changes I didn't agree with based on the countless hours I personally put into researching and holding meetings with cross functional teams and customers impacted by the proposed changes. I have seen her take away meaningful customer focused tasks in an effort to reduce Care's manual efforts which no doubt have since led to an increase in manual work both operationally and in the Care team's front line while also leading to a poor customer experience. I have been a part of poor decisions being made, putting counter productive changes into place affecting customers, other teams, systems and PEOPLE only for her to magically discover this was happening years later (after the damage had been done) and she puts all her people into correcting this problematic process pretending she had no idea it was happening and she's everyone's golden child hero now because she fixed something she broke so she could fix it and save the company money. Countless current and former employees have reported this person's behavior, tactics and ethics to no avail. HR is either blind or purposely turns their blind eye in the face of employees being verbally and mentally abused, and people who must work for survival in this world we live in are willing to deal with more than any one person ever should at a cost to their own personal lives and mental health to maintain their financial security. When your abuser is directly responsible for your personal financial well being and safety, what can you do? You suck it up and deal with it for as long as you possibly can until it catches up to you. I'm still processing fallout from my years of trying to be good at a job I wasn't allowed to be good at, with an incredible amount of work related PTSD, and the internalized idea that I'm not good enough or not smart enough because I had one narcissistic horrible boss. How horrible that they let this continue to happen and praise this person for her job well done. The fact that someone hasn't seen through this yet and weeded her out still absolutely blows my mind.

1.0
Jun 11, 2025

Avoid this sinking ship

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They offered a hybrid schedule when I was there.

Cons

I was with the company for a short time and experienced some of the challenges it's currently facing. There were ongoing layoffs, and it was clear the organization is in the middle of a major pivot to stay viable. Unfortunately, support and training were minimal, and expectations were unclear. My direct manager struggled with providing guidance, which made it difficult to ramp up effectively. The general approach to onboarding and problem-solving felt more like “figure it out” than structured support.

1.0
Feb 8, 2025

Tailspin

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people. Employees generally care, especially legacy people. Compensation tried to be competitive but is now below market.

Cons

Executive Leadership Team. Starting with CEO David Boone. David is not an effective leader and is quite frankly destroying the company from within. We all understand productivity cuts, operational changes, more responsibility for associates, and even layoffs. Some of those things are necessary if we aren’t profitable. But his strategy is a “spray and pray” right now. Most initiatives are not well thought out, vetted, or implemented correctly. They simply roll some giant overhaul of a process out, get immediate feedback customers, etc, and then reverse course. Then, to make up for the mistake, they make a knee-jerk reaction and mess some other process up. Rinse and repeat. It’s causing havoc in operations and with customers. Just terrible leadership, David is on the board of Sycamore Partners, the firm that owns Essendant. This seems like a conflict of interest in some ways, but Sycamore should be concerned about his leadership. My message to Sycamore Partners: David has no idea what he is doing. And honestly is incompetent. Essendant's value is plummeting and will be worth a fraction of its previous worth soon. It is rather obvious that you would like to sell Essendant, but you aren’t going to get a solid return. Customers are jumping ship left and right and the few employees left will as well. It’s an untenable situation. Most colleague are looking for new roles elsewhere. Many of us were optimistic that things would level out, but under David’s leadership, it is obvious that we are going down. We can hear the violins. A few other things: - benefits dropping including 401K - no merit increases in years - zero advancement opportunities due to reductions - workload at an unsustainable level and confusion on who does what anymore due to layoffs - active compensation management practices and rug pull on bonuses and incentives…. Many have been discussing class action lawsuits due to this

Viewing 34 - 36 of 507 Reviews

Glassdoor has 528 Essendant reviews submitted anonymously by Essendant employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Essendant is right for you.