At headquarters, the co-op is a shadow of its former self. I believe that it's years of under-investment in technology, poor feedback mechanisms and a complete lack of accountability for leaders that have finally caused the organization to implode. REI is struggling financially more than it ever has. In an attempt to resolve this, many experienced employees (in some cases 15 years+) were let go in early 2023. Those layoffs were the worse-planned I've ever seen. The individuals who made decisions about who to let go seem to have done so without actually understanding what those employees did. Leaders had to be told in the days after that several of the projects they were identifying as the top priorities post-layoffs could not actually be completed because they had just fired the team that was working on them. Months later the chaos continues. Many people have quit due to the bungled layoffs and decline in culture. There are days that systems break and no one left has any idea how to fix them. The layer of middle management left is an absolute nightmare to work for. Micro-management, favoritism, and generally manipulative behavior run unchecked. Anyone that says this is still a great place to work is either sitting in a position that has isolated them from REI's core problems or is simply delusional. I don't believe this organization can ever recover.
