Wayfair Employee Reviews about "work life balance"
41% would recommend to a friend
(508 total reviews)

Niraj Shah
41% approve of CEO
Found 508 of over 6K reviews
Updated Nov 29, 2023
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Top Review Highlights by Sentiment
Excerpts from user reviews, not authored by Glassdoor
- "There are also some really great people that you'll meet and be able to work with." (in 479 reviews)
- "Good benefits and they tend to listen to employee opinions (in my department anyways)" (in 342 reviews)
- "Great culture and lots of people right out of college to make the transition into a new job easy." (in 334 reviews)
- "I am on the promotions team and oh boy I have the best manager and a great team to learn from." (in 127 reviews)
- "The pay is low and they hold you at specific positions until you have worked in that position for at least 3 months." (in 307 reviews)
- "Poor management and little to no change in a company that doesn't seem to know what they are doing" (in 264 reviews)
- "Just because an employee has been there the longest doesnt make them a good lead or manager." (in 219 reviews)
- "The salaries are low compared to similar jobs nationwide and very low when compared to Boston and other areas in Massachusetts." (in 166 reviews)
Ratings by Demographics
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Reviews about "work life balance"
Return to all Reviews- 5.0Jan 28, 2021Senior ManagerCurrent EmployeeBoston, MA
Pros
Interesting and great work life balance
Cons
Didn’t support work from home pre covid. Unknown how is it going to be afterwards
- 4.0May 20, 2021Senior Data Science ManagerCurrent EmployeeBoston, MA
Pros
Great growth potential. Good benefits and employee perks. You can have a good work life balance if you're OK with slower career progression compared with your peers. Transitioning from tech-enabled business strategy driven into a tech-driven company.
Cons
Culture has changed in the past few years. A lot of bureaucracy. Offer not competitive compared to other tech companies, making it impossible to hire top talents, and also causing attrition problems.
- 4.0Dec 28, 2012Operations ManagerCurrent Employee, more than 1 yearBoston, MA
Pros
Great people, fun culture, good perks & benefits - health & dental are excellent compared to other companies especially for families. Wide open opportunities for advancement or different career paths. People are constantly changing departments with no opposition from managers - just need to see something you want to do and ask for it. If you're doing a good job, chances are you will get it. So from that standpoint, you're able to get so much more experience than you would at a more hierarchical or tenure-based organization. Pace is really fast. Because of that, employees are empowered to make decisions & run with them. Scary but exciting. And lastly with a company growing this fast, the equity grants are a nice carrot.
Cons
Work life balance can tilt askew and sometimes you just have to recognize that you can't do it all. Often you're loaded up with much more than you can reasonably accomplish so you have to decide what's going to slip. Salaries are not terrific, especially for entry level. You're in it for the start up experience and the camaradarie, (plus the quarterly parties & monthly team drinks) not the salary. We need better career path planning and more concrete review criteria, but I hear some of that's in the works. The problem is, roles are constantly being created and changed, new groups are forming and so by the time you define a career progression within a department, it's obsolete.
3 - 4.0Aug 21, 2015ManagerCurrent EmployeeBoston, MA
Pros
Wayfair is a fantastic place to grow. If you can prove that you're a superstar employee upper management will pay attention and opportunities for advancement will become available to you (after you've put in your time, generally about a year, not overnight like many people right out of college expect). They put a lot of trust in you and it's a great place to learn how to be a leader, master tools like excel and SQL and try your hand at everything from negotiation to project management. Work life balance is great and while the company expects a lot out of their employees they don't want anybody to kill themselves working- some are better at time management than others but not many people work much more than ~50-60 hours a week at all levels. As many others have mentioned culture is amazing. Many people make lifelong connections to other employees and create really robust networks. Most really care about their peers and enjoy spending time with each other in and outside of work.
Cons
Like many others have said pay is an issue and the reason most people leave. The company is beginning to right size things but it's still not anywhere close to market and has not adjusted salaries enough to the increasing cost of living in Boston. You also see a lot of bitterness and strife with certain employees who expect a lot of the company very quickly. The reality is that maybe 20% of entry level employees will get promoted, and you have to prove yourself worthy of these promotions. People who are not recognized get unhappy and the attitude can spread.
2 - 2.0Apr 25, 2012Current EmployeeBoston, MA
Pros
Pros: It is genuinely possible to make a promising career for onself at Wayfair. Constant change means there is no such thing as a normal day, and for the same reason time passes quickly. Even in junior management roles there is immense freedom of action, however expect creativity to be drowned out by overload and repetitive tasks. If you're 'in', you're going to be fast-tracked to greatness. There is huge opportunity to learn a lot of different roles (as well as the challenges of the online retail industry) very quickly. The company's internal reporting is incredibly strong and best of all accessible to all employees. There is both an appreciation of work hard play hard and a strong work/life balance in the company. Even entry level employees (depending on location) can be very empowered. Remuneration 'packages' and on-site perks tempting but overcompensating for a poor salary culture. Employee stock options.
Cons
There is a culture of promoting someone into a position, promising a future pay adjustment and then not observing it yet overloading them with work. A carrot will then be dangled about 'proving oneself' to achieve the role & recognition one should have got in the first place. This is deliberate policy as a cost saving measure. Where opportunities do exist for entry level staff – such as moving into team leader or assistant Manager roles – these have promising staff placed into them on a ‘trial’ basis with little or no feedback on their performance, no payrise, no formal recognition and no formal training. One of the core values of the company is Transparency. It’s like a bad joke. Constant danger of job/scope creep with all the risk and no reward. Culture of promising employees being assigned laterally and then overloaded with work Wayfair is a corporate cult, non-believers are not readily tolerated. Frequently at manager level there are discussions on who is “in”, and who is “out”. Employees who are deemed to not “get it” are quietly deemed to be misfits. At some point in your time at Wayfair you either start drinking the Kool Aid or take the red pill or find yourself completely at odds with the company. Pushback is grudgingly tolerated, while failure to complete all tasks is not acknowledged correctly and is usually blamed on poor time management. In Customer Service – where the bulk of the company's employees work - salaries are uncompetitive at all levels outside of senior Management. There is a major issue with people doing just enough to not get fired and these freeloaders drag back the potential bright stars. In my group, no significant promotions have occurred in over a year despite significant growth. When they do occur, promotions or appointments are not announced which is probably due to guilt over the blatant favouritism displayed in some of the appointments. In fact, this deters many people applying for openings as they are felt to be a foregone conclusion. At ground level you are nothing short of a Unit and deeply immersed in Phone Hell. All schedule deviations are monitored down to the minute and you live and die by your metrics. The position of the company is that it operates a ‘meritocracy’ but as far as most of the employees can tell the company only pays lip service to this and generally uses the concept to its advantage as above. In terms of expectation above junior supervisor, it is genuinely very hard to know what is expected of you. Scope and job creep is a continuous danger and employees are regularly and deliberately overloaded with work, from the bottom up. There is a deliberate policy of understaffing and underresourcing. Employees are not always conscious of all the benefits they are entitled to. Most employees genuinely have no idea if the company has a policy for registering HR grievances, in fact some locations do not have a HR resource. Contracts are not periodically updated to reflect changes in position, roles or salaries. There is very little documentation to outline best practices with troublesome employees. No development plan exists for anyone outside of loose target guidelines in manager roles, and apart from a contribution to further education there is little or no opportunity for formal development in house as all training is job-only focused. The approach to training is best described as “scattergun” and is very reactive. At Managerial level it is absolutely non-existent, you receive no formal training, and gain no transferable skills or certification apart from the experience you are gaining. Unless you are lucky enough to advance and continue doing so you will be at a dead end very quickly. The hiring process is incredibly loose and selection procedures can be poor. There is no policy to proactively manage burnout which is a major issue in the company. The approach to training is best described as “scattergun” and is very reactive.
12 - 1.0Feb 15, 2020Anonymous EmployeeFormer EmployeeBoston, MA
Pros
I met some great people while working here, that I will be friends with still.
Cons
Toxic environment in regards to senior leadership. Shady decision making that goes against my morals. They say work life balance is valued but I ended up working 12 hours a day for no return.
21 - 5.0Mar 17, 2023RecruiterFormer Employee
Pros
Had an incredible manager that supported me and my professional brand. Everyone valued a strong work life balance and I always was able to manage my workload.
Cons
None that I can think of
- 3.0Jan 14, 2021Software EngineerCurrent EmployeeBoston, MA
Pros
I have been on several teams at Wayfair and I can say that they are all amazing and wonderful to work with. As a female engineer I can safely say that this company is great to work for.
Cons
This is not a company to work for if you want a work life balance. I regularly work 7 to 7 Monday - Friday
3 - 3.0Sep 10, 2019TrainerFormer Employee, more than 3 years
Pros
They have above average health care benefits including medical, dental, eye care, 401K, stock options and excellent PTO accrual. They are fairly flexible with work/life balance and most managers understand people have lives outside work and emergencies arise. They stock the break rooms with free snacks and fruit which is always good.
Cons
Change is constant and not always needed. They claim to be transparent, but that simply isn't the case. They say they do market studies on pay and benefits, but almost always the pay is below the national average. Working conditions are stressful and confusing because most of the time you have no idea what's going on. Their review process is incredibly unfair and they move people around just to fill "buckets on the curve." They often ignore how managers rate their people and employees suffer as a result of the process. In most departments there isn't a clear career path. They also have a culture problem partly because there are a great number of employees who have never worked for anyone else. That makes for an environment where people aren't willing to listen to new ideas and have the frame of mind "this is how we've always done it." That goes for senior executives and senior managers as well. While they do have decent benefits, employee purchase discounts aren't great with the best discount being 50% off open box items. They also require a lot of employees to travel, but only issue company credit cards to directors and above. So if you have to travel and you aren't above the director level you have to bear the expense and then submit for reimbursement which is a problem given there are a lot of people who simply don't have or can't qualify for a credit card. That includes international travel. Regarding pay, they pay inside sales reps on the B2B side well below what other companies pay and commissions are very slim. Overall they claim they are an "employer of choice" and they have "paid" to have that distinction in their home city of Boston, but that isn't the case in other offices around the country.
11 - 3.0Jul 7, 2020Program ManagerFormer Employee, less than 1 yearBoston, MA
Pros
Exciting working environment that allow you and your team to test and implement new things at a timely manner
Cons
Some team may be too small and performance review may be biased based on your manager's personal opinion/standard. Work life balance is just okay as most people (on my team) there do not have kids.
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