Low pay is the easiest con to quantify, and the least likely to change. Employees frequently leave for substantially better pay. Melaleuca will claim that they pay fair wages for the area because cost of living is so low in Idaho, and that employees who leave for better pay are going to markets where the cost of living is higher. Many employees do leave for more expensive markets, but their raises in pay are far more than the increase in cost of living. There are also plenty of employees who get big raises by leaving for local companies that are willing to pay fair market wages. You can find former Melaleuca employees on LinkedIn who are now at DocuTech, RS&I, Basic American Foods, Kyanii, and INL (among others) who all took substantial raises to do the same job at another local Idaho company.
The low pay might be tolerable were it not for the toxic corporate culture. The company is run my paranoia. There is a pervasive paranoia that employees will make mistakes, share corporate secrets, may be getting paid too much, not working hard enough, or taking advantage of the company in some way. The result is over-exertion of control by upper management, particularly the CEO. There are way too many layers of approvals required for routine processes such as marketing promotions, backfilling positions, bonus payouts, procurement, prioritizing IT work, etc... it really slows things down and creates extra (unnecessary) work. If you can't trust your Directors/VPs to make decisions, you've got the wrong people on the bus.
The most valuable attribute in the eyes of Melaleuca management is aggressiveness. There are many individuals who are given responsibilities way over their heads, not because they're capable of fulfilling them, but because they are stubborn and bulldoze everyone around them to get their way. This leads to some very dumb people in very influential positions. When their poor leadership leads to poor results, the crap flows down hill and their teams take the heat.
Melaleuca is seriously out of touch with technology and best practices in business. I won't elaborate here because there are plenty of very honest reviews from the IT department on Glassdoor.
At the end of the day Melaleuca is an MLM. They will argue vehemently that they are not, based on some technicalities they've invented. The reality is that they sell products that are over-hyped and over-priced to people who are hoping to get rich by getting their friends and family to buy them too. With very very few exceptions, they find that Melaleuca has over promised and under delivered. The same is true on the corporate side. Melaleuca claims to be a family centered "Wellness" company that has grown each year through honest work, and really cares about it's employees. The reality is that Melaleuca has grown primarily through "burn and churn" in new markets, and manipulating pricing and compensation plans to increase margin. Employees work 60 hours per week for below market wages, and there are several inter company infidelity scandals each year. Hardly a family friendly company.
