- WWT says a lot of good things. We say we are a great place to work. We talk about good leaders. We say "no bad managers." We say "open door policy"....we are really great at talking. Not so good at doing and acting on these words. We drink a lot of Kool Aid and have become to lose the meaning of our words, unfortunately. After 13 years with this company it really has changed. The messaging is still positive and consistent from corporate and they have truly great goals and visions, but unfortunately its a lot of talk....the bad managers run rampant, the perks are becoming fewer and far between with budget constraints. GHQ seems to offer much more benefits (tickets to race events at a local St. Louis racetrack, concert tickets at times) but the satellite offices are left in the dark and many are left wondering (whats so great about WWT compared to any other company?)
- Most of the current focus has been on the warehouse side of things, but WWT has been continuously slipping in all areas of the business. In sales, engineering, etc. Part of this is due to growing pains, but many things are simply due to lack of training in some instances and wrong seat on the bus in others. If you check Fortune's Great Places to Work list (which WWT greatly prides itself on) you will notice that they have consistently fallen on that list year over year.
- There are a couple regional sales managers that are very rude and arrogant to internal teams (sales ops, labs, SRC, etc) in order to get what they want. Top level management is aware, but conditions have not changed. This bad attitude then seeps into the account level sales teams and poor attitudes become the norm.
- Other regional sales managers are very highly qualified sales reps, but they lack the skills to manage a team. They were promoted due to their success with their customers - but this does not translate into being an effective manager/leader.
- WWT tends to grease the squeakiest wheels. The employees (especially sales reps) that whine and complain the most, cut the lines, break process, and steamroll over others tend to get what they want the fastest, while humble, rule following, culture abiding reps get pushed aside in lieu of pacifying the non-culture fit.
-Training is continuously lacking. We blame "fast growth" on lack of in-depth training new hires, but when "Growth Company" is a literal corporate goal - are we actually expecting business to slow down enough to properly train someone? The answer is we won't and we don't. We're obsessed with growing so rapidly that the bubble will eventually burst, we will lose many good tenured employees (check last month's termination report - a dozen 6-10+ year employees jumped ship) and eventually WWT will become a hollow shell because the best folks will no longer tolerate the atmosphere.
- WWT has been saying "we are experiencing growing pains" for the last 5+ years. Its an excuse for "hey thats the norm around here." They've put different initiatives in place (Business Process Improvement, BPI) and others, but many of them have taken years to roll out and the end results for those processes that have rolled out see minimal performance improvement gains. WWT is trying but employees aren't feeling the weight lifted off their shoulders
- Still a constant struggle for tenured employees to get appropriate raises from the inside. If you want a solid increase, the common joke is that you have to leave the company and come back - which is something many employees have done. WWT is much more focused on hiring people from Cisco, Dell, NetApp, DiData/NTT, Insight, etc than growing ISRs and internal folks who actually know WWT's inner workings - Its extremely hard for an ISR or Ops person to make the transition into outside sales. A few have done it through the Federal/GSP space, but its difficult unless you're the son/daughter of an executive (nepotism is popular at world wide....however many of the relatives are very hard working people and nepotism isn't innately a bad thing, but in certain instances special roles/exceptions have been created for family that otherwise wouldn't have been created at all).
- WWT is popular for what I'd call the "delayed compensation promotion" in which you are promoted to a new role and you are given the new title, tasks/responsibilities, etc - but told you will not have your pay adjusted until the first of the year. For instance was once promoted to a team lead in March and was told that an appropriate increase for my responsibilities would come in January the following year due to budgets and it would be "too hard" for finance to adjust pay mid-year. This has been a common theme for many employees - HR/Finance should make it easier for managers to give mid-year raises if they are merited. The replies on Open Door and Glass Door to this one continuously say that "we pay accordingly and promotions should come with a raise" but that doesn't happen in practice. Even in lateral role changes where a raise might not be "expected" HR needs to realize that managers are telling employees that they will get a large bump, but it won't come until the next year because they can't get funding for it - but that role change comes with more responsibilities (hence managers saying an increase will come). So regardless of if its a lateral move or a promotion - employees are being told by managers that they aren't allowed to increase pay or have been told its too difficult to increase pay until the budgets are set the next year. This isn't a one manager thing either. Three different managers have said the same thing - so hopefully this bullet isn't glossed over with a "well a promotion should come with a raise" or "if it was a lateral move that doesn't come with a raise" - when managers are saying that the raise simply can't be approved until the next year.
