Zalando Employee Reviews about "management"
99% would recommend to a friend
(270 total reviews)
Robert Gentz
98% approve of CEO
Top Review Highlights by Sentiment
Excerpts from user reviews, not authored by Glassdoor
- "Great culture and ambient; the relationship between teams is interesting; work peace is slow but steady." (in 71 reviews)
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This rating reflects the overall rating of Zalando and is not affected by filters.
Found 270 of over 3K reviews
Updated Dec 2, 2023
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Reviews about "management"
Return to all Reviews- 3.0Nov 19, 2022Finance OperationsFormer Employee, more than 3 yearsBerlin
Pros
Great environment for work. It depends with who you work... Some of them are supportive!
Cons
They pretend to listen but they don't... Too many projects pending and too little resources. Project managers with no glue and no work experience with people. Senior management (Senior Leads, Head of ... and Directors) talks too much and no facts! They pretend to listen people but they don't! They give hidden bonuses. They promote people in one year by skipping the performance evaluation. They promote people who have support from senior and the newly promoted do not have skills for that level. They hire people by ignoring people employed in past with experience. They push people to work in office at the request of a Team Lead. They hire team leads who never worked in Corporate. Only from small and middle businesses. The support team like SAP team have communication problems and they do not like to make changes or accept new changes, new ideas. Effectively they do not want to listen people. They are agressive and ignorant people with the rest of colleagues from other teams. The salary package is not great. There are no benefits. It doesn't make you happy just for short term period. If you ask feedback from senior level for your improvement, they complain about time or they find excuses. To give feedback is the one of tasks from senior level to your team, colleagues from other departments. Some people from Finance Solutions practice bullying discreetly with colleagues. Just to make you to contact them ever for any request. After years, there is no vision about your development as employee. Except for the people who have a strong back from senior leaders. They practice micro management very often with their team especially the leaders who came from small and middle companies. Some leaders know about this micro management and they close the eyes by encouraging and creating a stressful environment. Sometimes toxic
Zalando Response2yThank you for leaving us a review. We appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We take what you say very seriously as the described behavior is not what we strive to practice at Zalando and goes against our values and high standards. We specified our shared values and standards in our Code of Ethics (https://corporate.zalando.com/en/about-us/zalando-code-ethics). To prevent violations and to react to them in an adequate manner, we offer different channels for both employees and externals to report possible violations, including a Whistleblower Tool (https://www.whistleblowing-zalando.de/). We have shared your feedback with the Leadership team and our People and Organization team who are looking into it in order to drive improvement where needed. - Talent Acquisition Team
- 2.0Jun 30, 2023Fashion StylistFormer Employee, more than 1 yearBerlin
Pros
- Really cool co-workers - Central location
Cons
- Rules are always changing - Everyone has to take lunch at the same time - No flexibility at all - High exceptions and if models are late and looks fall behind, you get in trouble even though it wasn't your falut - Management can be super horrible and unprofessional in how they approach things - They tried to promote me, by demoting and promoting.. saying my job was actually junior when my contract was mid level. And they were offering me a promotion to mid level
1Zalando Response6moThank you for taking the time to leave us a review and many thanks for bringing this to our attention. We appreciate your honest feedback on the areas we could improve - we take what you say very seriously as the described behavior is not what we strive to practice at Zalando and goes against our values and high standards. We would kindly like to invite you to share further feedback via our anonymous whistleblower tool (https://www.whistleblowing-zalando.de). - Talent Acquisition Team
- 4.0Oct 3, 2022Applied ScientistCurrent Employee, more than 3 yearsBerlin
Pros
- Some good benefits (e.g. 40% discount in Zalando, beautiful offices, hybrid work) - Good care of the employee at least in my team (1:1s, health checks) - very good work-life balance - clear, written objectives for the career growth - very good documentation for some stuff
Cons
- Interview process mostly no sense: e.g. theoretical questions that do not have any application in the daily work, wrong questions (the correct answer for them is wrong). - FAVORITISMS: your lead, manager etc might prefer some people over others just because they are more temperamentally aligned with the employee. Sometimes this is a con for career progression, other times for daily work. VERY BAD. I have seen team members ignored daily just because of this. - Micro management - Difficult career progression. On paper, they help a lot with career progression, and they have clear objectives. In reality, it is very difficult to progress. Excuses everywhere. - Applied Scientist is an enhanced data scientist role. In some teams, it is software engineering in others queries all day long, while in others ML - Very bad management sometimes: people that do not even know what they are doing: e.g. hired from Amazon and promoted in Zalando. A result of a flawed interview process I think. - an annoying push towards documentation. Documenting processes takes more than actually doing them
2 - 1.0Sep 13, 2023Anonymous EmployeeCurrent Employee, more than 5 yearsBerlin
Pros
The company has an open culture between employees where the majority are kind and respectful with an open mind.
Cons
The management at multiple levels from senior leadership down to head level are highly unqualified and unable to deliver on the company strategy. They are running the business into the ground with years of restructuring, highly complex ways of working and no accountability or ownership. This creates an extremely toxic environment and will likely lead the company to more layoffs in the coming years and further failures.
9 - 1.0Nov 28, 2019Corporate Technology employeeCurrent Employee, more than 1 yearBerlin
Pros
- standing tables, free fruits and drinks, discount in the Zalando shop for some brands that are not partners of Zalando
Cons
- VERY political and often toxic environment, especially in 'Corporate Technology' department, but also within 'People and Technology' (HR) and 'Corporate Real Estate'. - Middle-level employees are treated very badly, you can often witness shouts, threats, 'do-as-I-say' & 'I-am-the-boss-here' attitude; - Salary is lower than the market average; all later appraisals are 'symbolical,' and if you were not able to secure a good starting salary, there is very little chance to improve later. - Central functions are mostly cost-driven departments, very old-fashioned management, people are not used (and don't know how to) work in a business-case driven environments, nor many know how to develop a business case or why one is needed; - Most open positions within central functions are to replace an employee who left because of burnout and bad management practices; - VERY SHADY performance review practices (search for articles on ZONAR in google) that give zero actual transparency but way too much decision power in the hands of your direct manager;
8 - 5.0Jul 15, 2019Brand Strategy & AnalyticsFormer Intern, less than 1 yearBerlin
Pros
Great colleagues that care about you and your learning experience. It's challenging but supportive at the same time.
Cons
Higher-level management is reluctant to see new ideas that deviate from his or her own.
- 2.0Jul 15, 2023Lead Data AnalystFormer Employee, less than 1 yearBerlin
Pros
1. Good work life balance 2. Gym benefits, Germany Card Subsidy
Cons
1. Role is very undefined 2. Top Management is clueless on it's initiatives. Burden falls on middle layers to define and structure work, but it is often met with resistance and lack of support 3. Salary is low compared to market standards. 4. High pressure to perform during probation, else the role is terminated
Zalando Response5moThank you for leaving us a review and sharing your experience with the community. We appreciate your honest feedback on the areas we could improve. Open communication and participation are pivotal elements of our company culture. To provide an environment where everyone is heard and able to participate in shaping Zalando’s future is our top priority. We try to work closely together and nurture an active exchange between teams and across business units. We would like to invite you to share further feedback via our anonymous whistleblower tool (https://www.whistleblowing-zalando.de). - Talent Acquisition Team
- 3.0Mar 20, 2023AnalystCurrent Employee
Pros
Nice working at such a big, international well-known company Friendly colleagues Varied work
Cons
Workload is not consistent Slow decision-making Management decisions and subsequent explanations are disappointing Not always as inspiring or educational as you would hope
Zalando Response9moWe appreciate your honest feedback on the areas we could improve - we’ve shared it with the respective teams to ensure we're delivering the best experience we can for our teams at Zalando. - Talent Acquisition Team
- 1.0Nov 3, 2023Senior Software EngineerCurrent Employee, more than 3 years
Pros
- There's a works council since a couple of years, putting some effort on many areas. It may take time, but maybe they can improve some things.
Cons
- Needless meeting focused culture (that claims the opposite) - Intrasparent management (choices that impact all of us are often made behind closed doors and without sufficient justification) - Lots of pressure, and eventually not a family friendly work place (despite claims to the opposite) - Specialists/individual-contributors (i.e. non management) have no way to grow or advance, and (the often unimpressive) raises have to do with how much your boss likes you. - Often uninteresting work - Contributing to making even larger, one of the most polluting industries
4 - 4.0Aug 3, 2020Category Operations CoordinatorCurrent Employee, more than 1 yearBerlin
Pros
- constant movements, learnings and new individual opportunities to develop - interesting projects - young peer group - great modern office - improving English massively
Cons
- salary - loads of competitors - unfair and nontransparent promotion management
Zalando Response4yThank you for taking the time to write a review! We are really glad to hear about your personal experience in this role and that you are enjoying working with your peers on interesting projects and taking advantage of development opportunities offered at Zalando. We are also dedicated to continue improving and appreciate you sharing your input on how we can do that. Offering fair compensation to our employees is very important to us. We regularly review our salary bands by benchmarking against comparable companies and business sectors in order to offer competitive compensation to our talents, and we believe our salary bands are fair. Besides competitive salaries, we offer many additional benefits such as the employee share shop where our employees are given each year free company shares, 40% Zalando shopping discount, public transport discount, municipality services, additional holidays and volunteering time off, as well as diverse sports and health offerings. In addition, our performance evaluation process is constantly evolving and improving with the help of our employees’ feedback. We use 360 degree feedback as a basis for supporting the growth journey of every employee and for making decisions on promotions. With our regular talent reviews, our leadership team is looking into our talent base to identify promotion ready colleagues and agree on concrete talent measures to foster growth and development. Regarding your last point, at Zalando we have a zero tolerance policy for discrimination and we strive to create an environment where everyone feels safe, valued, and included at the workplace. Our Employee Resource Groups and Diversity & Inclusion team are playing an active role in driving change by advising managers and helping Zalando make more informed decisions to promote diversity and inclusion throughout the company. If you have any other feedback or ideas how we can improve, please feel free to share your thoughts with us: eb@zalando.de. Wishing you all the best and continued success in your role!
