17hats Reviews

Where to even begin. I began working for 17hats and thought this was a dream job. I got to work remotely, the team I was on was amazing, everyone got along, and my bosses at the time were the best anyone could ask for. I was in a division of the company called Ally, which allowed small business owners to utilize this service and receive an team of 3 to help manage their business through the software. I'm not sure why, but half way through my time here, my division was taken over by a different person within the company who knew absolutely nothing about what we were doing or who our clients were and their wants and needs, nor did this person to care. Our then two AMAZING bosses were assigned to other areas of the company and everything went downhill from there. Our new supervisor did not listen to anything we had to say about what would work best for the company, even though literally every single employee was letting them know what wasn't working. They tried to keep this light and fun attitude but behind the scenes this company was CLEARLY going under. If you spoke too much about what you thought would benefit the company, you were let go. I wish this was false, but with a total of 30 (or even more) people getting laid off just within the last year, this is a sad truth. They kept saying "this isn't personal" but consistently let go TOP PERFORMERS with outstanding peer and customer reviews due to personal dislike while keeping on the people who just smiled quietly and accepted everything without speaking up for the rights of the employees and customers. After the new boss took over Ally, it crashed and burned leaving dozens of people without jobs and HUNDREDS of business owners who invested their time and money out in the storm. They have absolutely no idea what they are doing here. The sad thing is, they had honest, good hearted people working for them who were grateful for their jobs, willing to help grow the business, worked amazing together as a team, and genuinely wanted to see everyone and the business succeed. The employees that are still left (and there's only a handful) are constantly terrified on a daily basis they are next to lose their job. What a glorious work environment! Because of this lack of investment in their own employees and feedback, 17hats as a business is going under and will likely not survive the year.

Most former (and I'd wager, current) employees share the opinion that the management structure of this company is severely flawed. Employees were seemingly promoted to lead various parts of the company despite relevant experience or basic competence. It reeked heavily of favoritism. In my view, decisions were not made by key stakeholders, but instead in secret off-site conferences held by the exec team or at the last possible second on a whim by the CEO or others in management. Information trickled out from a couple in management who actually cared, but mainly it seemed decisions were made by impulse, ignoring key insights from the teams at large and the people doing the actual work. If this wasn’t the case, there was zero effort to make us understand otherwise. To me, this is a company that talks a lot of talk but does not walk anything resembling a walk. The CEO let toxic employees ruin the culture here, which was EVEN felt by remote employees. He enabled and even promoted one serious offender who caused chaos at 17hats due to his unprofessional behavior toward women — a VERY serious matter that seemed steamrolled over like it never happened. There was no HR, no sexual harassment training, nothing! It was and still is quite shocking. I think it’s important for any future employees reading this to consider that 17hats is not a meritocracy. Favoritism and “shiny new toy” syndrome ran rampant in my tenure here, and it felt that if you weren’t in the office late night foosballing it up with the CEO or constantly checking Slack/email all hours of your nights and weekends (and yes, especially holidays), your dedication was questioned. If you take a position at 17hats, be prepared to hear the phrase “it’s a startup!” whenever any problem comes up (oh, and they will). It’s management’s catch-all excuse to get out of any jam unscathed. It’s sad that this company will fail spectacularly because of poor leadership when the people on the ground give it everything they’ve got. Don't believe that most of the negative reviews on here come from "disgruntled" employees. Management does a pretty good job at deflecting criticsm, but the hypocrisy has already started to catch up with them. Everyone I worked alongside at 17h had incredible focus and respect for their jobs, which says a lot despite how horrible the management was/is.