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      Rakuten Kobo

      Part of Rakuten

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      Rakuten Kobo reviews

      4.2

      83% would recommend to a friend

      (262 total reviews)
      avatar

      Michael Tamblyn

      88% approve of CEO

      82% positive business outlook

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Rakuten Kobo has an employee rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars, based on 262 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Rakuten Kobo employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      262 reviews
      2.0
      Mar 22, 2022

      Would not recommend

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Great at fostering a community vibe, fun social activities, good people to work with

      Cons

      The longer you work at Kobo, the more difficult it becomes to put up with being overworked and underpaid compared to market salaries. Zero opportunity for growth or salary increase, even for employees with outstanding feedback from managers and who are on the right growth plan trajectories. No attempt to retain their existing talent, which is why turnover is so high. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you work to prove yourself, you’ll always be undervalued at Kobo.

      avatar
      Rakuten Kobo Response
      3y
      We appreciate you taking the time to leave your review. We agree that Rakuten Kobo’s people and culture are strong, but are sorry to hear other elements of your experience were less than satisfactory. Providing our employees with ample career and professional development is a key motivator for us. We continue to invest in our Learning and Development offerings by introducing new development opportunities based on employee feedback. Our frequent Organizational Health Surveys and company-wide Pulse Checks also serve as a great looking-glass into how our most important resource, our employees, feel about the status of things at Rakuten Kobo. We take the feedback seriously and work to implement improvements based on the responses. Thank you for taking the time to leave a review and we wish you the best in your future endeavours!
      3.0
      Oct 26, 2021

      Friendly work environment; limited growth opportunities

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      So many really great, smart and interesting people, many of whom are very generous with their time. The product is fantastic and most people at the company are really passionate about what they do. Benefits are good. Some good perks if you love reading. Generally a very nice work environment.

      Cons

      Compensation is very low compared with similar tech or e-commerce companies, especially in content. With the cost of living in Toronto increasing drastically, salary increases are very minimal and starting salaries are low. Growth opportunities are non existent in many roles and there is little opportunity to progress. Burnout is strong as workload can be intense and, while upper management encourages employees to use vacation time, the accumulated workload upon return can be very overwhelming. Difficult to scale up as everyone is constantly working at max to maintain status quo.

      avatar
      Rakuten Kobo Response
      4y
      We are happy to hear that you found Rakuten Kobo’s work environment to be friendly. What makes Rakuten Kobo a great place to work are the amazing, smart and interesting people that work here, which you have also highlighted. We are sorry to hear that you found the compensation low. We review salaries against benchmark survey data that includes tech and e-commerce companies and have been making adjustments as appropriate. In addition to offering competitive salaries, we also offer annual bonuses, RRSP matching, stock options, a generous training and development budget, unlimited sick days, and above industry standard vacation and time off. We invest a lot in our talent and we review every employee’s compensation on a regular basis and make adjustments as needed. We also host regular mental health and wellness sessions through our Employee Assistance Program provider to ensure that employees are equipped to take care of their well-being. If you feel that you are facing burnout, or are concerned about the well-being of your colleagues, please reach out to a member of the Employee Experience team or Mental Health First Aid committee for assistance. We are more than happy to help and will work with the employee and manager to find a resolution.
      1.0
      Mar 31, 2015

      Good people but terrible executive management.

      Marketing designer
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      If you get into a great team, you'll enjoy working there. The people was the reason why I enjoyed working there everyday.

      Cons

      Terrible management of company expenses. They had a massive downsizing in May of 2014 (160+ people lost their job in one day) . All the executives kept posting photos of their exotic trips around Africa (cage diving with sharks and sipping alcoholic drinks by the pool side , just to name a few) while at the same time knowing the company was not doing well financially. In the end this led to the company being taken over by Rakuten as our ex CEO went off with possible a huge payout to start another business. Oh another thing, a lot of people only received a 1% raise. Back in 2013 it was 3%.

      Viewing 10 - 12 of 262 Reviews
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      ReviewsRakuten Kobo reviews

      Glassdoor has 329 Rakuten Kobo reviews submitted anonymously by Rakuten Kobo employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Rakuten Kobo is right for you.