Redbubble reviews about "layoff"

Loads of layoffs every year or so. Many of my colleagues have left since. Still a good business.

So someone wanted to be the next CEO and got rid of everyone, I can't imagine the culture there being tolerable anymore, literally its "we pay you, you work yourself to ground" . It's a feature factory. All talents laid off but surprisingly band of friends weren't. They say redundancy was based on role but its clear as a day it was favouritism. Not sure the P&C members still have jobs while so many talented people who worked incredibly hard for 6 months sacrificing their mental health for the company were laid off. From first hand knowledge, some of the people were absolutely abused and no action was taken. Since the founder CEO joined, it has become one of the most toxic places I have ever worked in. It used to be such great culture of hard working people but all thats left is people who will just do anything to climb up the ladder.

The don't care about their employees and continue to have layoffs without cosideration for the work that will be left for those that stay. They keep high expenses like offices in expensive cities and international traveling, while underpaying their employees.

Going public, and the resulting turnover, harmed the culture. The emphasis is now on the bottom line. This is dangerous, because management doesn't have a long-term strategy for the company besides releasing more products (how many types of t-shirts do we need, really?). This manifests as erratic layoffs and rehires within a few months. Some of those moves can be very cold; Redbubble brought an early Aussie employee to the US and terminated her before the green card process finished. The "people" team cracked down on in-office happy hours, and most people that made the culture what it was have left or been forced out. Morale has been down for a while as teams have been stripped of headcount and the resources they need to perform their jobs. The emphasis now is on the HQ in Melbourne. On a practical note, the office only has 3 bathrooms for 70-ish people. Our desks are still wooden doors. The wifi hardly works!

SF has steadily lost relevance as an office as it is stripped of the resources and budget it needs to make informed decisions. Turnover has stepped up at the lower levels, but we’re starting to see upper management leave, too. The office deals with low salaries, worthless stock, no promotions, erosion of headcount, refusal to backfill key positions, and moving entire team functions to the home office. Two things have led to this decline. First, Redbubble went public too early; the CEO still has no idea how the company grew or how to keep it growing. This leads to inept forecasting and ensuing layoffs (primarily in SF) when those forecasts are missed. Second, the Australian-based COO has taken control of the company in the past couple of years and has been on a power trip forcing out various other leaders. Most recent decisions around SF have been a direct result of a power struggle between the COO and the former CFO. I stress that these aren’t decisions to better the company, but rather to solidify the COO’s power base in Melbourne. Why else would a "tech company" have the CTO answer to the COO?

As the company grows there has been an increasing number of high-profile layoffs which are always framed as "so-and-so has decided to leave" but everyone knows what's really going on. Also the people and culture team seem a bit disconnected and unrelatable. People don't want to speak up about problems in a forum that's not-anonymous because they don't want a target on their back.

Layoffs and profitability destroyed the culture

Redbubble “sells” itself as an open, inclusive and fun workplace when it’s anything but. The lack of empathy that came with the new layoffs (which seems to occur every couple of years) is sickening. This lack of leadership from the CEO to the head of Human Resources that bragged once this was their last job (how nice for them while most people don’t have that sense of stability) and the rest of C staff shows that not only do they not care about taking ownership of layoffs and posting their decisions publicly but continue to remain silent when those impacted need support the most. Silence is a sign of a toxic workplace. Favoritism runs rampant and the pay is low for the share of work you will be expected to take on. Some toxic leadership traits are masked by the standardized performance reviews since there is a lack of leadership training and general lack of understanding of what good leadership is. You will find amazing, hardworking people who will be taken advantage under the guise of “the mission” and then either made redundant in less than 2 years or get so burned out they literally can’t perform at the level they need to survive and jeopardize their mental and physical health. This isn’t a start-up but a 15 year old company, to run people into the ground is shameful. This is all to say the business model is suspect and not scalable by any means. C staff is not effective in navigating the retail business or gaining marketing share from Zazzle or Society6. If you really, really need a job to get some ecommerce retail experience. take the job but please do not stay longer than needed.