Key people within the organization have left in droves in the last 3-6 months and it isn't hard to understand why. There are so many positive reviews from the past, but in the last year or so working at Cotopaxi has been the most exhausting, most mentally low and worst time of my career. If you are someone who prioritizes your mental health/wellbeing, and someone who seeks mentorship and guidance from your leaders, Cotopaxi is probably the worst place to be. Here are some examples on why: there is zero cohesive direction from the top and I cannot stress this enough. Nothing ever seems good enough for leadership approval either, which further exacerbates living in a constant state of ambiguity and not making real progress. Executive leadership seems under extreme pressure to deliver on what seem like very unrealistic goals and they are definitely not on the same page. Lately they have been treating employees in very negative ways (yelling at them, belittling them, making them question their work and expertise). When employees have real cries for help, even to the point where their health is being compromised, some leadership members do not seem empathetic or even phased. HR seems to be listening, but not offering real solutions to the problems. Instead they are asking employees to come up with ideas for how to solve some (very serious) issues and broken processes that we battle daily. Because of the serious lack of decision making from the executive team (death by committee is real here) communication across, and even within, teams is extremely sporadic. You have to piece together information from different people to gain clarity to make decisions or wait days or even weeks for a senior leader to respond to your message on slack (a remote workforce most likely exacerbates this, but also so many people are burnt out, so they don't care as much any longer). Cotopaxi says that it puts people first. This is on Cotopaxi’s career page: "From retail guides to product designers, we always put people first. Our work environment reflects how much we value people, innovation, and adventure, whether you’re working from our Salt Lake headquarters, one of our stores, a warehouse, your couch, or a van in the woods." This could not be further from reality (except the working remote part). It feels like complete hypocrisy and many employees are at rock-bottom lows or have reached their breaking points and are leaving. People used to be so motivated to help out, to go above and beyond, and that is no longer the case because leadership actually does not put people first, they put extreme growth and revenue goals first (like any other capitalistic company, so it is not different here). It feels like promotions are given selectively through favoritism and bias. So no, at this time it does not feel as though we put people first internally and it doesn’t feel like an end in sight for this style of leadership behavior. We’ve been told over and over that we need to give leadership grace and to support them, but they are not doing the same in return. There is such a severe gap in tools and software that could create badly needed process efficiencies, resulting in a plethora of time-consuming manual and exhaustive labor (you have to go on a wild goose chase across several teams/folders/drives/documents to gather information you need to do your job, and a lot of times your questions go unanswered). So much emphasis is placed on culture (which is wonderful) but it seems like not enough is placed on business positioning and infrastructure so that people understand the collective goal we're working towards and have the tools they need to be successful in their work. Every single thing is a fire drill (literally everything) and there is little to no time to plan ahead proactively. Not all, but many senior leaders say yes and commit to something without first seeking to understand if the new project/initiative is achievable against current workload and resources. Even if the answer is “no, we don’t have bandwidth”, we still do it anyway. Cotopaxi is a 100% managed-up workplace. This might not be the case in all departments but in several there is a complete lack of senior leaders giving direction and sharing vital information to set their direct reports up for success. Middle management has to manage both up and down to try to be successful, which is extremely hard. The workplace fosters extreme imposter syndrome, the little feedback you do receive from leadership makes you constantly question if you are good at what you do and if you can do your job successfully at Cotopaxi. There are many employees who battle defeat and feeling like they’ve failed on a daily basis. It is such an emotional rollercoaster. There also is not a sense of working together across departments, that we are in it working together for a common goal. The "there is no I in team" mentality does not exist here. There is clear favoritism from some executive leaders to certain individuals or teams, and everyone works towards their own agenda and not the greater good. Cotopaxi adheres to a Radical Candor approach to communication, yet when direct feedback is given to senior leadership, employees are told they are being negative and below the line, which contradicts itself. The founder/current CEO has fostered this incredible culture of leading with empathy, yet many of the executive leaders do not exude this, which fosters fear, uncomfortability, frustration and it completely demotivates you to go above and beyond. Regarding benefits, Cotopaxi does have a 401K match but it is way below industry standard and there is not a company cell phone plan, so in a remote environment and for those who travel frequently for work, they are expected to use their personal cell phones to communicate. Pay is typically on the lower end of the spectrum within the industry, but HR has made steps in improving this. Career growth opportunities are very muddy. Honestly it pains me to write this, because I wanted to love working at Cotopaxi so much, but people on the outside need to fully know the reality on the inside. It isn’t good and so many people feel this way, they just are afraid to speak up. Exercise extreme caution when considering a role at Cotopaxi.
