Heart in the right place, unfortunately little brain, and poor short-term outlook
Pros
Super flexible work environment: you can wear shorts and sandals to work if you want, your schedule is flexible, work-life balance tends to be good for most, there is time for bicycling and exercise during the day, employee discount is good (if you are a biker), not a lot of judgment on lifestyle, etc. Benefits are above average, overall. There are great facilities, like locker rooms, work-out center, mountain biking trails, overall office atmosphere is modern. The Cafe does a really great job for a workplace cafeteria. All the ingredients are top-notch, offerings are well prepared and healthy. Just a really great experience overall; Matt does a really great job. If you are a true self starter, that fits the expected molds here, you can make a big impact, once you have earned trust.
Cons
All the above freedom comes at a cost, however, as there is little accountability here. Professionalism can really be lacking at times. There are low performers that continue to get by based purely on whether they are perceived to be 'Trek-people' and are friendly with upper management. If you are a hardcore biker or exercise person, you will probably fit in, but if not, watch out. The workforce is not very diverse. Morale at the company is extremely low right now with all the recent layoffs. The company has really out-grown what it can support. There are no processes or procedures, very little documentation, no understanding of data collection, management, leveraging. There is lack of documentation on all levels, BOMs are maintained on spreadsheets if at all, PLM software is only around to capture product features and to feed the marketing side of the company, there are 20 computer systems to do what 3-5 could do, IT is complete mess, anytime someone leaves all of their knowledge goes with them, overall operational acuity and efficiency is really poor.... This is a multinational, billion-dollar company, that still tries to operate like a 10 million dollar start up. Much of the management is left-over from the 10 million dollar a year days, and is woefully under-skilled for the positions they currently hold. There is a lot of focus on details, and not a lot of big picture thinking. Honesty can sometimes be lacking from management, for example, in the start of 2016, HR required all managers to go on to Glassdoor and place positive reviews, because they were concerned about the companies hiring image. Management was also required to get as many of their 'direct reports' to go on and do the same. If you look at the trend of rankings on this site, you will see the bump up in 2016; this is not honest practice in my opinion. Product, Marketing, Sales, and CS are king at this company. This is a fashion company after all, and these are the areas where the President has experience and expertise. He seemingly does a good job in these areas, and people that perform well in these areas are recognized. These budgets are the last ones cut, have the most resources, and the least accountability is placed here. If this is your area of expertise, you will likely have a more positive outlook on the company. If you are looking at applying to an operational position, engineering, quality, project management, supply chain, IT, logistics, etc. you better be ready for disorganization, being asked to perform miracles with little to nothing, complete operational inefficiency, and a lack of understanding and support from upper management in what you do. Finally, there is the low wages. This is not too bad if you really love the exercise life, place work environment flexibility at the top of your desires, and live in one of the small towns immediately around Waterloo. Unfortunately, most of the skilled workforce lives in Madison and Milwaukee. Both commutes are an hour or more round-trip, and this erodes wages further.
