Don't drink the 5.11 Tactical Kool-Aide!!! - Anonymous employee 5.11 Employee Review

2.0
Jul 16, 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great Story! Decent products. Exciting Industry.

Cons

Strange "Cult of Personality". They admittedly profile and seek "adaptable" candidates and attempt to indoctrinate new hires to their "Ethos". Be prepared to be talked down to, dismissed and threatened as part of the job. Management preaches "Trust" but instills zero trust in their employees. They try to force feed their agenda, but don't practice any of what they preach. Very Toxic environment. Horrible work/life balance, employees are encouraged to work 16+ hour days (5am-11pm is the running joke) and expect to always put the Company ahead of any personal life. Their ethos driven model discounts hard work & results as secondary performance criteria. Performance is evaluated on a totally Subjective platform, persecuting anyone that doesn't "fall in line" and drink the Kool Aide. If this Company practiced even half of what they preached, it could be a decent place to work. Instead, they treat their employees like minions and resent any customer that doesn't buy their B.S.

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5.0
Feb 14, 2026
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CEO approval
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Pros

Great atmosphere and great coworkers

Cons

I don't have any cons for this company

3.0
Dec 4, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very simple job to do, usually a small team, great employee discount, relaxed dress code, and okay benefits.

Cons

Corporate is miserable to work with they do not care about anything other than numbers and looks. You could be have 10 amazing months out of 12 and they will scold and belittle your whole store for the two months you didn’t meet goal even if you meet the yearly goal. Store managers get bonuses if the employees do well but the other employees don’t get bonuses for doing well. Corporate constantly changes sales last minute and then get upset when stores don’t send confirmation photos. There is a big lack of trust and transparency between stores and district management. Not a good place to make a career out of unless you are okay with mediocre pay, neglectful management, and out of the blue hour cuts. Also the updated return policy absolutely destroys your numbers and corporate doesn’t take that into consideration when evaluating store’s performance.

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