A company consistently prized & awarded for “culture” when it’s far from the actual focus. - Anonymous employee BambooHR Employee Review

2.0
24 June 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I was with bhr for many years the absolute basic of needs are met. Insurance, health, dental 401k matching, PTO, 12 hours of volunteer time a year, a reliable in the industry name on the resume, executives who pretend to care. a paid vacation they encourage to take DURING A PANDEMIC to travel to unvaccinated areas on company (reimbursed) dime. No sick time off - with COVID the incredible, exploited team successfully fully transitioned and completely killed expectations and projected goals within a downplayed pandemic.

Cons

I decided to wait to post this because of the witch hunt (mentioned in a previous Glassdoor post) was out for me & even attempted to reprimand a seemingly negative comment I had made during my last week. Not the first time I was genuinely worried about negatives getting to the wrong copy songbird. They solely hire based on referrals top priority for better ‘culture fits’ and the hiring process is a JOKE even more so if you’re wanting to move up internally. I had a better experience getting hired on with bhr than I did with movement throughout the company. Communication is severely lacking and although they are hiring more recruiters, so much and so many fall through the cracks. Be ready for constant emails, texts to touch base on where you are sitting in the pipeline. From my many years with bhr, I made many referrals but as a surprise to none, the only ones who were hired on were religious, from the surrounding area, and sheep-like. Within one year a WHOLE marketing dept completely turned over &there was never any support from any higher-ups, executives let alone the vp of Marketing. Many noticed. Many were speaking about it but never from those who could actually do something about the high turnover. Many long-time bambooligans have left within the last year alone. Employees from 3-10 years with bamboohr. The exit interview was basic, no feedback prompted & I needed to be the one to initiate the feedback on the horrible experience as to, why I and so many long time employees were leaving. A company consistently prized & awarded for “culture” and how they treat employees when truthfully it’s far from their actual focus. Microaggressions & gaslighting speech made to feel like you are the one taking things wrong. And/or you are the one who should be grateful and happy to simply be here. To giving the yearly ENPS your ALL only to be told - you are the one who needs to be a better communicator. If there is any development for more, it’s for the managers or pushed to be your personal responsibility for more. Compensation does suck. (As previous posts have mentioned) It has always been an issue and ongoing battle. As well as senior titles. When pushing for either of these, the state of mind is” how dare you be so entitled you should be grateful for everything being given to you this far. Ie- paid vacation &basic essentials like feeling a part of something, work-life, Apart of the "Bhr family”. Especially at a time where anyone can work remotely, there wasn’t a big change in this & if there is a slight change in your comp, you’re made to feel incredibly lucky for that. When they don’t want to give you a comp increase, they try to ✨spice ✨ it up with phantom units ✨ & who knows when those will be worth anything to you. They just make you shut up about it & again refrain to the verbiage that you are lucky to be here. Annual increase plan by THREE percent that doesn’t even cut the cost of living. Compensation is treated as a secret and employees are told not to share because of the wide spectrum everyone is on. HQ is in Utah so the cult-like familiarity and toxicity is real. During a may meeting video addressed to the company, the culture was phrased in a way by the CFO that it was something to “abide by” as if the local sheriff should take you out if need be. That being said, If they don’t like you, like how loud & candor you are. There will be a witch hunt and/or purposely push you into a corner to leave bhr because nothing bad or negative happens there. Nobody’s unhappy at bhr— there are just simply people who don’t “belong or fit at bhr anymore”. After the murder of George Floyd, many bambooligans pushed for Antiracist, anti-bias training, many even offered to make space, put together &promote but of course the infamous response was... “We appreciate the feedback & REALLY appreciate you being so open” as you can tell absolutely nothing happened from this. As a leading HR company, D&I should be more than just a catchphrase for more MRR, Leads, or blog views. sadly it is not. There is NO diversity & inclusion nor push to get with the times. There are only tokenized minorities sprinkled throughout departments & those POC are often fetishized from the video team to give off an inclusive look for everyone else &social media. Their virtual event is a sorry excuse to push down their cultural ideas and wrong attempts to be more like bhr. When in actuality they aren’t acting like a top leading HR Company internally. At all. Not within comp, opportunities, development, D&I, the list goes on. All of this information and opinion was included plus some in my yearly ENPS report and as a surprise to none, no action, no follow up nor acceptance of responsibility or accountability has ever been a focus. Even when everyone screams for employee development & more than just running to be better. At bhr when you attain goals, you just push for more. You don’t get compensated you just push for more until you’re expanded beyond return & cut yourself loose. No remote monthly stipend. They used to hold a monthly company meeting with lunch, as the pandemic hit even the lunches were taken away (very on-brand for them) The company (when in office) was outgrowing the office space- and while many are surviving through a pandemic (literally) there were many at least they could dos, opportunities but nothing done to show they care for their employees besides of course, what they could be awarded or recognized for. They take the stance that the May & November meeting is where they really invest in employees but even their competitors, partners, and silicone valley neighbors are doing much more. I spent a lot of time and conversations trying to push for change but it was never worth the trouble or gaslighting conversation. Even after mentioning I was tired of the infamous reply “thanks for your feedback and being so open” you quickly realize some things will never change. Nor a want for real change. There once was a time I was heavily drinking the Kool-Aid and believed this was a great place to work. I do not think anything close to this anymore.

avatar
BambooHR Response
5y
As a former Bambooligan, your feedback is valuable to us. We’re truly sorry that you didn’t feel heard during your time here at BambooHR. We’ll try to address a few points you’ve addressed in your post: ▸Pandemic & travel: We want to be very clear that we never suggested employees travel in an unsafe manner. We paused our paid/paid vacation program through most of 2020 to encourage safety and instead paid it out as a bonus. We brought the program back in 2021 because we felt it was a key aspect of our culture and our Bambooligans were ready to enjoy some R&R with family and friends. We never dictate how individuals choose to spend their paid vacation time and respect how each individual chose to travel (or not travel) over the past 18 months. ▸COVID Paid Sick Time: Contrary to your statement, we did provide emergency paid sick leave specifically to support COVID impacted employees.; our steps here were very much in line with industry standards. ▸DE&I: As we evolve our strategy to include more programs that promote and encourage DE&I, we’re grateful you’ve shared your opinions. We have employees in a dozen states across the US, and we’re excited to continue Hiring great talent from all walks of life. As our employee make-up evolves, we are also actively building on our existing DE&I programs. ▸Compensation: We’ve done a number of things to ensure our compensation is competitive, including engaging with an outside consultant and feel very comfortable with our current compensation strategy. We also feel strongly that our phantom units program has the potential to create significant value for our employees. May/November meeting: We continue to receive great feedback from Bambooligans about our May and November meetings. While your post focuses on the fact that other companies are doing “much more,” we feel comfortable that these events are great opportunities for connection and individual development. As we grow, we will continue to evaluate what might be additive to our culture. We truly wish you the best of luck in your future career endeavors.

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