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      Pleo

      Engaged employer

      Pleo reviews

      Toxic environment overshadowing exciting growth - Anonymous employee Pleo Employee Review

      2.0
      15 Jun 2026
      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Remote friendly, lovely colleages in direct teams and supportive line managers. Really exciting AI initiatives.

      Cons

      Since the GTM overhaul and new senior leadership sadly Pleo has lost its people focus. The environment has become quite toxic and many many people are burned out. The business has been so focused on turning numbers around (rightfully so) but the decisions made to do this has made daily work unbearable. Work has been removed from sales teams and given to other teams who are already at 150% capacity. It's stumped development and causing teams to work outside of hours. Churn is a problem but BOB are far to large to have a meaningful impact. You are now led by fear for soemthing that is 9 times out of 10 completely out of your control. Instead of creating learning opportunities when something doesn't go right there is now a blame game. There is little positive feedback shared, no highlighting of good work done outside of large new business deals. The company have engagement surveys but no results shared on addressing employee concerns. There are meetings about meetings about meetings and what used to be pretty autonomous environment to thrive and share is now micro managed. The projects to improve processes are quantitative and not qualitative. It's adds the burden of more work and lacks focus. Understandly as the company grows things change and everyone aspired to be apart of the mission. But there needs to be balance of looking after your people and make them feel heard to build an environment to thrive and achieve those goals together.

      avatar
      Pleo Response
      1w
      Thank you for taking the time to share this. We're glad the remote setup, your colleagues, and the AI initiatives have been highlights. The direction we're taking with AI is very much central to where Pleo is heading, so it's great to hear that's landing positively. The changes in GTM come from a clear place - we can see a significant opportunity in front of us, we know this market, and we're going after it. The decisions we're making are designed to enable exactly that. That kind of transformation takes time to settle, and we're committed to making sure the structure and focus that comes out of it creates a better environment for everyone, not just a better business outcome. That said, it is tough when expectations are raised and ambitions get bigger - we won't pretend otherwise. We strongly believe we have the capabilities to get there, but it does ask more of people, and we need people who want to step up and win together. On feeling like outcomes are outside of your control - we'd gently push back on that framing. Our approach is one team, one direction, everyone wanting each other to win. In that environment, very little is truly out of our control - because we're all pulling in the same direction together. On culture and recognition - people wanting each other to win, honest feedback, and celebrating good work at every level - these are things we're committed to protecting as we grow. If the situation you're describing feels unresolved, we'd really encourage you to speak with your manager or your People partner directly - so they can properly understand what you're experiencing and work through it with you.

      Explore other reviews about Pleo

      4.0
      4 Oct 2023
      Software engineer
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Pleo practically has an excellent team culture and is a good place to add your skills and your skills.

      Cons

      Most times, team bonding might not favor everyone in some regional part of the world.

      avatar
      Pleo Response
      2y
      Thanks for leaving a review! In our more distributed teams, we know it can be more challenging to bring everyone together, but we will continue to explore ways we can get better at this.
      2.0
      21 Apr 2020
      Sales
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Quarterly team camps and nice social activities.

      Cons

      Where do I begin? As others have mentioned in their reviews, you’re sold an absolute dream with Pleo - that’s the best way to put it. They really sell you on autonomy and transparency and how they adhere to the ‘company values’ day in day out, and it couldn’t be further from the truth. There is no transparency, and nothing is communicated with you. It feels so ‘cliquey’, and you quite quickly know if you’re not one of the favourites. During my time, I’ve never felt so under valued and treated so horribly, despite being one of the hardest workers on paper, but apparently that counted for nothing. It was so demotivating, despite what you did you weren’t recognised. Somebody actually got congratulated for making 22 calls in a day during a company meeting - how embarrassing. A prime example was a colleague who hadn’t hit target for 4 months yet still got promoted. Additionally, new starters who had received extremely poor / or no training were put on performance plans in the first 3 months and got fired of their tenure for not hitting targets. All they talk about during the interview process is culture, and I saw the culture absolutely dive bomb into a toxic mess whilst the company tried to rapidly scale, particularly obvious from the VP level management. The processes and CRM were an absolute shambles, yet the management still expect you to hit your targets despite there being such inadequate framework to do so. My 1 to 1s with my manager were abysmal, clearly my manager had no idea how I was doing and wasn’t bothered. I had to effectively structure and fill the 1 to 1s as the manager never prepped for them. HR are unprofessional and in absolute dreamland. They didn’t even bother doing an exit interview with me, despite saying they would. This is a prime example of how they don’t even care and want to try and improve things. Additionally, without naming names, some of the employees, particularly longer standing ones were so so rude, no matter how much effort you made to try and get to know them. It is also hard to trust anyone at the company, considering the people who seem the ‘nicest’ were the ones to turn first and effectively ‘snitch’ on you. Ultimately, they dazzle you with the perks of going to Copenhagen to visit HQ, and these quarterly ‘team camps’, but ultimately the shambolic day to day operations and treatment of staff massively outweigh the perks mentioned above. I’m not the only current / former employee who feels like this, and I understand a lot of people have also left for similar reasons. I would avoid at all cost, there are so many lovely start up companies to work for in London, where you actually get to learn and contribute to the bigger picture.

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      Pleo Response
      4y
      Hey - thanks for taking the time to write us a review and to share your experience with us. First of all, I'm so sorry that you had this experience while at Pleo. Having favorites and creating an environment where you feel like you're not valued is exactly the opposite of what we aim to do. Please let me address a few of your points: 1. Radical transparency is the way we roll at Pleo. If we see someone not living up to this, or you believe you're missing part of the puzzle, it's up to us to give these folks actionable feedback on their communication style. Employees should know (as much as is appropriate) what's going on - especially when it comes to their roles and department. 2. Pleo is growing - and quickly. We're in a very exciting stage right now - teams are growing each month. We have huge goals that we're hoping to smash. With goals like ours, there's bound to be a ton of change. While it's expected for a company like ours, we understand that change isn't always comfortable. There has been more structure added to the company but we hope that once the growing pains have subsided the end result is more than worth the temporary "chaos." 3. Our culture is crucial to who we are - the type of people who work at Pleo make it an incredible place to work. We try to prioritise this in our hiring process. Once someone is hired and welcomed onboard, it's up to all of us to welcome them to the team. This means discussing the "Pleo way" with them over coffee, inviting them to a Pleo dinner, explaining the team structure to them, explaining what's worked and what hasn't worked for you. It's up to all of us to preserve the Pleo culture. With more and more people joining each month, this can be difficult to maintain but we believe that collectively, we can preserve the Pleo culture as we scale. 4. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't have the best experience with your direct manager. Sometimes, people are put into roles because we see their potential to grow into that role. They're a work in progress, but we believe that with some time, hard work, and coaching, they can crush it. I'm sorry to hear that this was not the case here and urge anyone in a similar situation to reach out to the People Ops team ASAP. Overall, we hope that your experience is not shared by many at Pleo. The People Ops team would personally love to hear from you via email or Slack to discuss how we can better your experience and how we can do a better job. Please don't hesitate to reach out directly so that we can sort this out. Thanks again for submitting your feedback and we hope to hear from you soon!
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