ShoreTel Reviews

Pros

Fantastic product that is superior to other solutions on the market. The company is continuing to experience growth and evolve through changes. Peter Blackmore (new CEO as of December 2010) has brought about positive changes in the strategy and vision of the company. Generally speaking, everyone seems willing to contribute to the overall success of the company. There are a number of really great individuals at the company.

Cons

I have consistently heard that the compensation package isn't the most competitive and this should be addressed. This is particularly important when recruiting sales staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to offer frequent updates to the employees on the strategic goals and the progress made toward the goals. It is important to secure buy-in from all parties and keep them informed to the progress.

Pros

Great people to work with, but some times may need work over time, and also the workload is very heavy

Cons

Some times may need work over time, and also the workload is very heavy. If you want to find an easy job, this is not the one you are looking for.

Advice to Senior Management

Great people to work with, but some times may need work over time, and also the workload is very heavy

Pros

- directors are deeply technical and talented

- product focused staff engineers

- result-oriented engineering, have a get-it-done-or-get-out-of-my-way attitude

- devout developers go out of their way to satisfy customer's complaints

- free drinks and espresso machine

Cons

- save a few dev managers, middle managers throughout engineering (esp in quality assurance) are non-technical and number-driven when they should be focused on being working, technical managers. lack of technical involvement is directly to blame for poor engineering decisions and product delays

- not enough bottom up innovation despite ideas flying around

- politics played with the numbers are on the increase. some bad promotions and/or cronyism is to blame for this. constant emails and pointless management meetings, keyword-driven drivel is apparently considered "work"

- awful HR recruiting practices - fifth rate politics played to reduce compensation figures for new employees. directly to blame for bad, but cheap hires

- engineers used to be the heart and soul of the company - now product management and program managers drive changes with minimal regard to engineering

- talented engineers leave the company for greener pastures due to mistreatment by middle managers, unholy work hours, frustration with product quality and impossible deadlines

Advice to Senior Management

Wake up. We're losing what made us unique - brilliant engineering. it's being bartered for marketing-driven drivel. Listen to employees working at the grass-roots. Please realize that "management" is easy - leadership is what is difficult - and we need leaders desperately. Hire without proper compensation and very soon, even the talented voices will drown amidst mediocrity.

Pros

Great work environment, informal atmosphere, good training, free drinks, good location, great people,
close knit community feel, good work recognized.

Cons

Compensation lower than other companies, that's all!

Advice to Senior Management

Interact more with all employees, Make it more easier for people to move from one team to another if wanted.

Pros

There are smart people that work that all work together to drive to work towards a common goal. I really enjoy the collaboration and get the job done attitude of many of my colleague. It makes you want to do your job better.

Cons

It's a very faced paced environment, so someone needs to be able to adopt quickly. But in that sense, I have never been bored. =D

Advice to Senior Management

Keep us growing in the right direction!

Pros

ShoreTel is the "up and coming" UC provider and rapidly gaining market share. Well respected product in the industry. The company is growing at close to 40% and aggressively hiring. ShoreTel's goal is to grow to a billion dollars over the next 5 years and managment is executing on its strategy to get there. Good benefits, not a lot of politics and company is focused on growing revenues and product quality.

Cons

Its a very fast paced work environment and can be demanding. Not a good place if you want a 9-5 job.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to provide timely & effective communications to employees.

Pros

ShoreTel's VoIP system is great and a great value, and the company has been improving its call center products. The engineers have been the heart and soul of the company, and the rank-and-file employees are mostly good people.

Cons

ShoteTel has been held back by poor senior management. Upper management just does not seem to get it. Its positive talk is just talk, and its actions prove this. With the resignation of CEO John Combs and his pal, VP Walt Weisner, one would hope that things would improve, but the interim management team that has been installed from within is not showing the needed humanity or wisdom to make ShoreTel a great place to work. A person has to have pretty thick skin to tolerate the arrogance of management. I hope a really good senior management team can take up the challenges because the products and the engineers are good--ditto for the support people, who have had to work with ridiculous disadvantages in trying to keep the customers happy.

Advice to Senior Management

Wake up.

Pros

Free sodas and discount vending machine food. Good development systems for engineers. Free breakfast a couple of times a week.

Cons

Compensation and benefits are very sub-standard. ShoreTel is growing by adding many, many new employees but the leadership capabilities are not scaling.

Advice to Senior Management

A flat organizational structure can be good. Flat however is not effective if the same 10-year tenure technical architects are attempting to do twice as much work - that just slows everyone down.

Pros

Shoretel is growing fast and there is lot to learn here.
Free sodas, repetitive breakfast on Fridays that's where it ends.

Cons

Middle management, they need to go! Seriously they are driving the company into the ground.
Other cons:
1. Lack or non-existent career growth: Moving teams is not encouraged even though HR touts it. I don't see much career growth here. Is HR listening to employees?
2. Stingy HR policies: Pay for your own decorations on Halloween? Are you kidding me? Conveniently hosting company events on non-lunch hours. It's not as if I'm broke that I cannot afford lunch but it used to be the norm to have lunches before and catering for 100 people isn't that expensive. It's just a nice thing to have.
3. Overzealous about reaching targets and customer satisfaction: I know every company has targets and such, but stretching your already over burdened employees is not the way to do it. Be it software engineers releasing software or sales people meeting targets. The customer sat metric is a joke that is manipulated every single quarter.
4. Taking advantage of the recession: This, along with middle mgmt is going to bite Shoretel in a big way. HR took advantage of the recession and hired quite a few talented people below market rate salaries. Did you really think they are going to stick around?
5. Hiring poor candidates: This is in contrast to the above point, there many unqualified people have also been hired at the same time without adding any value to their team or the company as a whole because they got them for cheap. Thanks HR.
6. Employee retention: I cannot believe that employee retention is below customer satisfaction on the acting CEO's agenda list. Already many talented employees have left for greener pastures because of utter frustration and more will follow soon.
7. Disconnected from HQ: Although now there are over a 100 people in Austin, it still feels disconnected from HQ. Most people don't know or care what we do here.
8. Absurd requests: Like when the former CEO was coming over, there were emails being sent about keeping you kitchen areas, common areas etc. clean. Should I, along with the burden of work perform cleaning duties? Sure they should be clean, but that's not my job. This goes to the point of HR being stingy and not hiring someone to do it. Also before the office manager, there was a schedule of cleaning activities assigned to a group of three people each week, unbelievable. If Shoretel were a start up I can see why they would want to cut costs but this is ridiculous.
9. Acting like a big company:
"You have to go through the proper channels", "is there a process documented for this?", "you will have to open a ticket for this", "we have legitimate work to do", "we have to prioritize that", phrases like these and others make me cringe. We are small enough to be nimble, get this bureaucratic crap outta the way.
10. Too focused on customer satisfaction: I understand that the customer is important, but that doesn't mean we should be their you know what. Even the most absurd requests are meticulously attended to by Shoretel. All they need to do is make noise, this goes for the partner as well, giving a new meaning to word partner. And the most retarded part is that anyone can call senior management, be it a Fortune 1000 company or a two person company. In any case, the customer satisfaction numbers are manipulated so it doesn't make sense.

Shoretel would be an awesome company, if we could either get rid of middle management or make them working managers and HR being put in their place.

Advice to Senior Management

Take a close look at what is going on around you and the company at the lower levels. How long are you going to make every employee do the work of multiple people? How long is mediocrity in middle mgmt going to be tolerated?
This is an exciting, but crucial time in the company. You can boast about yourselves creating growth, revenue, customer sat etc. to the board as much as you like, but it's the hard working employees in all divisions that have brought this company from near bankruptcy to where it is right now. We need direction from senior mgmt, not politics and bureaucracy.

Pros

The company is growing at a fast pase

Cons

Depending on what department you're in you can feel like you work in a sweat shop. Sometimes Managers take your ideas and use them as if they thought of it.

Advice to Senior Management

Get more intouch with all departments not just with managers. People are working out of class on their job titles and the work they actually do.