One Kings Lane Reviews

Pros

Great culture, people and opportunity

Cons

Too much in fighting over technology and too many leadership changes

Pros

Flexible work-life balance if you have an understanding manager, good office location

Cons

No room for advancement, poor and expensive benefits, outdated technology and resources, understaffed and overworked teams, best employees have left the company, constant turnover, too many temp workers, HR team is the worst I have worked with

Pros

Transparency across all levels of the company. Smart and strategic leadership team. There are always opportunities for learning. Employees have the chance to participate in multiple projects that are outside of their day to day scope. OKL offers flexibility and a great work life integration.

Cons

The Bed Bath and Beyond culture can present challenges at times but the OKL President and Leaders have navigated the cultural differences effectively to ensure the OKL culture stays in tact.

Pros

The people, the office location, and the work life balance. For the buying side, people worked all of the time, but for the rest of us it wasn't so bad. While leadership was atrocious, the people below the Director level were fantastic. We often used to say that if Director and above left with few exceptions, we could actually get good work done. We also all used to say that we wanted to work together again at a different company, and for many people this has happened.

Cons

The intense scrutiny on hierarchy is strange. The company is so small and shrinking daily to have so many levels of hierarchy. Management is self-obsessed and self-righteous, which leads to strange decisions that are often completely contradictory. The "perks" create distrust and lower morale. The benefits are great if you have been at the company for a long time. Otherwise, the discount code is the same as the promotion every other week, and maternity leave is about half of what other employees get. People were even fired for using the wrong discount code, which was downright awful for all involved. Transparency is also non-existent. Work is simply dictated regardless of whether it will make sense or is useful.

Pros

-Great team of smart, driven, design-obsessed professionals -It's fun to be part of such a beloved, beautiful brand!

Cons

-Poor culture always trickles down from the very top, and here is no exception. As a result, it's rife with micromanagement and leaders who make you feel worse about yourself and your role. It wasn't always like this.

Pros

There were two things that made working at OKL tolerable: the people and the discount. That being said, as the quality of life working there deteriorated, dozens of wonderful and hardworking employees left. Between 2018 and 2019, I can think of 30+ people who left, and it seemed nearly everyone who stayed was also pretty desperate to leave. About the discount-- there was a huge discrepancy in discount between employees, depending on when you started. Older employees got a 40% discount on the entire site, and new employees got 20% off. This is not only unfair and bad for morale, but it also lead to several discount abuse-related firings for employees who used the wrong code.

Cons

Where to begin? The Bed Bath and Beyond acquisition will bring this brand to the ground. Their management structure and systems are so archaic, and it's a wonder they're able to operate at all. OKL management, including the president and nearly all VPs, are at the beck and call of BBB, and many of them work in BBB's offices on BBB projects half of the week. They frame it under the premise that OKL is doing such great work that BBB wants to use that for their own brands, but it's clear there's a lack of resources and they're trying to stretch everyone as far as possible. If that's not the sign of a brand going down—and giving higher-ups a safety net for when it does—then I don't know what is. If you decide to work here, be prepared to feel extremely uneasy about job security for your entire tenure. The amount of miscommunication within the company is astounding. Leadership is seemingly purposefully clueless to how the rest of the organization works, and to the opinions and morales of those under them. And with so many people leaving the company over the past 2+ years, very few have been replaced or backfilled-- likely less than half. It was to the extent that it felt like they almost wanted people to leave so they wouldn't have to deal with layoffs. You can imagine what having colleagues leave, not having them replaced, and then taking on their roles and more does to employee morale. The company is also extremely resistant to making changes that will have a meaningful impact on the business down the road. For example, they are stuck on the constant promotions and value cycle that has driven brands like J.Crew to a downward spiral. Their once-healthy email program has become a means to wring as much money out of the customer as possible because they spam inboxes with a ridiculous two emails a day. I could go on, but I think this paints a pretty good picture.