Tripadvisor reviews

When I interviewed for my role, every person I talked to emphasized that we're a "speed wins" culture. Now that I'm in the company, I realize it's just words. You can't actually do anything without approval from the CEO. Every request for new headcount requires his approval, and in some cases takes month to finalize. He often pushes back on headcount requests for reasons such as "don't agree with years of experience" or "role should be a level J, not a K". I haven't been able to figure out if he's a micro-manager or if he doesn't trust his leadership team (or both). Additionally, I believe the company is grossly inefficient. Many acquisitions have been made, and it doesn't appear as though there are any plans to integrate the companies. I understand sometimes that is done for strategic reasons, but I don't see how the company will scale with so many engineering teams, so many marketing teams, so many distinct sales organizations, etc. Sadly, everyone I've talked to who has joined TripAdvisor from larger, more established companies seems to feel the same way. The company has such a strong employment brand, but then you join and can't wrap your head around how the company has been able to be successful at all. I suspect TripAdvisor is trying to hold on to the "small company, start-up type" culture, but sometimes a company needs to accept that they're not small anymore (almost 3k people now) and needs to start acting like a larger company.

Poor talent management, micro-management from the top leads to lack of empowerment, limited career growth opportunities, lack of integrity and honesty throughout management, very poor recruitment. Generally - the company is laughably out of touch with current employees and culture - just one read of all the HR responses on Glassdoor touting access to the CEO and that Trip still operates nimbly and like a start up highlights this complete lack of understanding ...It's NOT a start up anymore - it's a 1500+ person company, and the CEOs door is NOT open - and nor should it be. That's the whole POINT of management in large companies, something that Trip now is. Trip was once a great company but unfortunately, it has not scaled well. First step in solving this is to stop pretending that all 1500+ employees have access to the CEO to give feedback and stop implying that it's the employees fault the company is poorly run. Listen to the reviews and use the feedback to make some speedy changes to your people management.