REI Reviews in Kent, WA

Former Employee – worked at REI full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Work life balance.
Values lived out every day.
The people who work there are fantastic.
Challenging, fun work.
Stewardship encouraged.

Cons – Salaries seem to be lower than other organizations.
Internal technology is antiquated though they are working on fixing that.
REI nice can make it hard sometimes to get things done.

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on growth and the dollar may impact the culture and what makes REI such a "special" place.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at REI full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great discounts on outdoor gear and clothing. Nice campus and generally nice co-workers. Depending on your department/manager, opportunity for flexible schedule or work-from-home arrangement.

Cons – Pay is LOW. Health care is available, but expensive and basic.
If you want a promotion, you have to kiss a** and play politics more than you'd imagine necessary for such an altruistic employer. I saw many people receive promotions who were not qualified based on how much a leader "liked them."
HR management is dishonest and unprofessional.
New CFO is more interested in "bottom line" vs. retaining long tenured and engaged employees. An untold number of staff, many who had very high performance review scores, years of tenure at the co-op under their belts (10-20 years on average) and developed/deployed signature REI programs, were laid off by REI in March 2013. REI leadership was not communicative or professional in their reasoning or handling of the layoffs. Many of these employees, by simple mathematical calculation, would have been at the higher end of their pay scales -- which leads to a conclusion that this was a cut and dry cost cutting measure with no concern for the impact on human lives, professional contributions or performance history. Truly deplorable for a company that publicly stands for ethics and integrity. These layoffs resulted in poor morale and confidence for employees left at the co-op. The Board of Directors obviously needs a course correction with their top co-op leadership team.
REI is losing their beloved CEO, which means the company is headed for even rougher waters if they can't pull out of their current leadership tailspin. I honestly don't think the leadership transition will go well for them based on the handling of the layoffs. This set a bad precedent for co-op direction.
Too much focus on competition with Amazon, Dicks, etc., instead of focusing on what makes REI stronger and unique as a co-op. Need better strategy and management in marketing/sales to enhance REI's competitive edge. I came into my job with a positive perception of what REI stands for. Unfortunately, the reality of working there tells a different story of a sinking ship with poor leadership.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay attention to why your 100 Best score went down this year. Your employees are telling you something, and clearly you aren't listening. The resounding message is "senior leadership IS a huge problem."
HR leadership has a strange relationship with the truth. I have never heard of layoffs being handled so poorly in any company. Clean house, and start over with emotionally intelligent beings who have ethics and integrity. The Board better start paying attention, or they will lose even more market share to competitors. You honestly aren't doing much right at the current time.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at REI full-time

Pros – Kudos to REI for giving back to the community via grants, donations, and allowing employees to volunteer for outdoor service projects like clearing hiking trails (& doing so during work hours). Employees work hard and are nice for the most part. Flexible work schedule, no micro management, incredible employee discounts for gear & clothes, shoes, etc. Good pay and benefits.

Cons – Culture not what it used to be. Did not feel supported or appreciated by the time I left. My contributions to the company growth were not recognized as much as they could have been. Lack of effective leadership, which impacted overall success of department I worked in.

Advice to Senior Management – Realize that you cannot effectively lead your people if you are more concerned with your own personal climb up the corporate ladder!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at REI full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Genuine endorsement for spending time outdoors whether going out for a jog over the lunch hour or getting into the mountains on weekends.

Cons – Heavily bureaucratic and siloed in approach to decision-making and innovation. Lacking an inspiring organizational and brand vision beyond promoting discounts and sales.

Advice to Senior Management – Find a visionary leader. Embrace unique status as a co-op. Create a bias toward action rather than a bias toward including more decision-makers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at REI as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – Very nice people, pretty campus, positive vibe in most departments.

Cons – They have turned into a profit chasing corporate assembly line at their HQ. Obsession with constantly expanding the profit margin at the expense of organizational stability. The IT department is run by clueless middle managers with no passion for or deep knowledge of IT. Cost cutting is king and jobs are outsourced to cheap workers in India. Onsite contract employees are treated poorly. Recent layoffs of employees that have been there for years so that their jobs can be outsourced, show that REI is focused on the numbers, not the people. Many of their best IT people have left or are leaving. Work life balance is a lie for the IT department.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop chasing endless growth and re-focus on building a really great company that can withstand the test of time. Money can't buy loyalty.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at REI full-time

Pros – Fabulous benefits, smart people, fun industry, fantastic products, focus on the customer and corporate social responsibility.

Cons – Big changes are happening! While this can be both positive and negative, I'm concerned that the changes will ruin REI's incredible corporate culture. With Sally Jewell, former CEO, leaving to become the Secretary of the Interior, and Matt Hyde, former EVP, now the CEO at West Marine, there is a big hole in leadership. The new CFO is making some good changes but is not interested in maintaining the culture. The co-op is losing its employee mojo -- which is the basis of its wonderful customer focus.

Advice to Senior Management – The Marketing Dept is in a bad place. The newer SVP is rarely there and lacks (any) marketing expertise, one of the new DVPs is carrying the dept and is making good changes but appears to have poor judgment in her new hires, and one of the new directors is literally managing by fear and has caused several valuable employees to leave since her onboarding. Unfortunately, Marketing leaders are no longer willing to promote qualified internal employees, so moving up the corporate ladder is not possible at this time. Include the lack of or poor bonuses, the below-market average pay and tremendous increase in workload, marketing is no longer the best dept to work at REI.

Senior management: Marketing needs an experienced leader, and does not need directors who are untrustworthy and poor people managers.

– I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at REI full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Great culture and work/life balance. Good brand and opportunity to work on cool projects. Great discounts for outdoorsy types. It's a company you can be proud of and is seen as an industry leader.

Cons – Pay is not the highest in industry. There's sometimes a lack of direction. Management going through some growing pains, but is taking steps to improve.

Advice to Senior Management – Fight to retain experienced internal talent. Maintain your brand identity and culture.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at REI full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Good discounts, a "green" company that supports the environment, outwardly a relaxed and pleasant working environment, a co-op (not a publicly held company) that is not driven by stock prices, etc. Senior leadership is still pretty good, and on the ball for the most part.

Cons – I believe that some significant pockets of mid-management are more interested in managing their own careers, titles and pay scale at the expense of advancing the business, or even keeping the senior employees that got them there. (Allegedly, reportedly, "on the down low", etc. a significant number rumored to be at least 150 (out of approx 1200 total at HQ) mostly, senior-level 10+ year-tenured staff and management employees -- with all the ones that I know, having a history of major contributions and perfect performance records were laid off at the company's headquarters in March 2013 plus an "unknown number" more at the stores.). This appears in my humble opinion, (since they are not really saying, and being publicly as vague as possible) to be an arbitrary, simple cost-cutting measure, i.e. remove the "more expensive employees". In addition, in my former department, I had noticed in recent years, that promotions and advancements were very few and very far between at the staff level. In my opinion, It looks like they possibly want to maintain a mostly entry to mid-level position to keep costs down. Per all of the above, I think it might be a good place to get your "feet wet" coming out of college or early in your career, but you might not want to plan to stay working at REI for the "long haul" as like me, you may never make it to see the highly-touted "sabbatical" benefit (at 15 years). Unfortunately, I think some career-limiting, and very negative precedents have been set with this particular lay-off, and a strong message has been sent to all remaining and future employees via these actions. My advice: If you stop advancing for any length of time, or are working in an area that is not the primary or a significant focus for that given year (or even a 6 month period), move on in the best interests of your career -- or they may do it for you ! I believe now that staff employees have become "a commodity", or "a number"....very un-REI like if you ask me (e.g. as compared to a decade or more ago)!

Advice to Senior Management – My advice.... You now perhaps have your apparently-desired(?), least-cost skeleton crews in place both at headquarters and at the stores. This is your time... sink or swim! Also, lest you forget, REI is a co-op, not a publicly held company -- so quit trying to emulate one as shown by your drastic actions. You will never be able to compete with the Amazon's and Dick's Sporting Goods' of the world by playing their game, by their rules -- or you will definitely sink. Don't be a "copy cat". Re-emphasize service and support in all areas, and differentiate yourselves urgently now or else pay the consequences of a gradually shrinking market share in the outdoor recreation space for the foreseeable future.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at REI full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Great product benefits, good benefits in other areas.
Some really good employees in working levels at Headquarters where I worked.

Cons – Changing to a high pressure, disrespectful and selfish management team, in general, though there are still some great caring managers.
Extreme inconsistencies from department to department.
Out dated equipment at retail stores.

Advice to Senior Management – Get back to your values that took REI to the success you had reached...you'll do this by not always following other companies, allowing employees to honestly (without repercussions) to evaluate managers performance. Senior managers must find out what many of their managers are REALLY doing to their teams and how they are being treated.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at REI full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great discounts and good atmosphere of folks that love the outdoors

Cons – Management is not experienced and is unprofessional and lacks strategic planning ability. Communication is poor throughout the organization, but especially poor coming from top execs down.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't sit in your ivory tower, you need to talk and work with the people "below" you to make decisions and to learn what is really going on.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company