The bar is high, and the results are terrible - Anonymous employee Gusto Employee Review

1.0
Mar 24, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You get to support small businesses Your colleagues will be the best part of your job Consistent all hands with space to employees to ask any questions to the CEO Good perks, but used to be better. The longer and harder you worked on this company, the less perks you'll received

Cons

Talking about Gusto is complex. On the one hand, you hear that leadership is there to make ICs and PEs happy, under the "happy employees, happy customers" philosophy, but in reality, everyone is miserable, including the customers. They do invest a lot on their middle management level to coach and empower their teams, but the team is always understaffed, undertrained, and exhausted due to the environment that they are put on. Under the pretext that performance should be challenging and that they want to "raise the bar," they set extremely difficult KPIs. Working shouldn’t be that hard; providing solutions to customers should be the main focus. However, I think the budgetary aspect speaks louder, so they squeeze as much as possible out of people. You’d think Gusto would provide the most superb support out there, right? All those high expectations on people, high KPIs, should make this the best support in the world. Instead, it’s the worst customer experience a company can give. Just read the reviews customers leave online. They love the product but hate talking to customer support. ICs are burned out, tired, and lack the time and resources to provide quality assistance. There is no escalation flow, no urgency, and the product doesn't address customer pain points. I’ve had MANY cases where we literally had no way to solve the customer’s problem. The internal teams who should be helping us, just push back. I've seen MANY employees didn't getting paid, and the employer had to figure things out themselves. In this environment, the ICs take the blame for not hitting those high bars, leading to huge turnover. Meanwhile, the leadership, who should be held accountable, remains in place. I don’t think anyone making decisions for CX has spoken with a customer in years. They don't even know what payroll is.

Explore other reviews about Gusto

5.0
Jun 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great culture, everyone is there to help

Cons

None so far, still pretty new

2.0
May 20, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The product is genuinely good, too bad the same can’t be said for how they treat the people who sell it.

Cons

Leadership talks a big game about people-first culture but the reality doesn’t match. The Chicago office expansion felt like a poorly thought-out experiment, new hires were brought on without a clear long-term commitment, and layoffs came without warning, leaving people blindsided. Crossing a billion dollars in revenue and still cutting employees sends a clear message about where workers rank on the priority list. Remote work flexibility is also a glaring weakness. For a company selling HR software to modern businesses, their internal stance on where employees can work is surprisingly rigid and hypocritical. The “flexibility” messaging is mostly optics. The broader concern is the AI roadmap. The automation push feels less like an innovation strategy and more like a slow wind-down of the workforce. Employees aren’t blind to it, it creates anxiety and erodes trust. The culture of transparency they promote externally is largely a facade internally.

7
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