Pros
Even though clients can be very demanding, most of them are lovely and interesting.
Cons
High turnover in every department except IT and corporate! Very toxic work environment, they discourage teamwork and growth, encouraged division between the departments, lots of complaints to HR who recommended changes that were not correctly implemented. FWT no longer has any office or even a virtual office in CA, but refuse to publish the Milwaukee address in order to mislead the wealthier California clientele. They pay based on your location, not your worth...so prefer to hire from the Midwest or poor southern states. There's no training or support even though you will often be led to believe there is. They HIGHLY discourage advisor travel or meeting clients. They will not disclose the client reviews. This seems like an effort to control the real reviews of the group department and company overall. It seems like mostly the negative reviews made it to the advisors even though the same clients gave shining emailed reviews of the advisor. There's a lot of shady side-business going on by employees trying to make up for the low pay and "bonuses" (commission lowest in the industry). The systems they use are incredibly outdated and clunky. The land tour department often tries to unnecessarily charge clients for tours when they have to cancel (for example 100% penalty effective immediately @$10k even though the tour operators had not required payment at the time). The tours were very overpriced but the advisors are not allowed to release an alternative until the tours released by the land tour department have met quota. There's no support when you need it, people in power are quick to throw advisors under the bus to the winery or the corporate management instead of taking responsibility for guest complaints. Gaslighting happened regularly. Advisors regularly lost wait-list client bookings due to favoritism/lack of within the company. Several times they promoted employees but had them continue in to work both the old and new position until they "could hire and train a replacement", this came without a worth-based raise in both cases and lasted more than 6 months. Raises are regularly promised but not given. Retaliatory in response to harassment complaints given to HR. No payment for miles or time if you have to commute hours for work outside of the area you were hired for. They hire lawyers outside of the company legal team to try and bully former employees into notorizing an agreement to uphold their bogus, vague non-compete contract. Most of the current advisors are looking for other work or working their own travel business on the side. The bonus pay/commission is one of the lowest in the industry. Run. Just run.
