Xero Reviews

Pros

- Xero people are awesome people who are friendly and always helpful - Xero takes very good care of its employees and puts emphasis on work life balance - Lots of room for learning and up-skilling

Cons

- Sometimes I feel like the vibe is a little bit complacent

Pros

People are awesome. Very friendly and highly skilled. Overall vibe is great I loved the coffee machine

Cons

1. Silos of work 2. Mid managers get you in but rule their empire and only look after their seats 3. You opinion does NOT matter 4. Due to Xero's "long term incentive" plan, there are few people who survived from the extinct generation who are part of furniture now and do not want to share what they know. They push you under the bus!

Advice to Management

Look under your hood and see what mid-managers are doing to people is really #Human? When I joined, Trent came to our induction and said he wanted Xero to be the last place I work for (meaning I stay there for life long). However, the culture was no way close to such claim.

Pros

Good Social environment, nice offices

Cons

I started at Xero in late 2012 where i was hired as the first sales person for WorkflowMax, a product Xero acquired 10 months earlier. I was told during the final interview i would be reporting overseas and would be separate from the rest of the sales team as they wanted the team focussed on selling the accounting software, not distracted by other products, however I would be included in all meetings, activities etc.... This was true to an extent but the following 3.5 years was an interesting experience. I was given opportunities to build out teams and grow revenue, which we did by 5 fold over that period. But there were far more negatives than positives. Over 3.5 years I was at Xero i was ‘reminded’ weekly from everyone from the MDs down to PDRs that ‘we didn’t count’, ‘we didn’t matter’, ‘we weren’t important’. This was told to me and my team, globally. Xero has a culture of excluding those who aren’t involved in the ‘core’ product, despite their ‘inclusive’ marketing. We were run in a silo, given little to no investment, no strategic direction from the executive, little to no support and as mentioned above, reminded consistently we didn’t belong. Xero has a value of ‘challenge’ which is about driving change so i hatched a little plan to lobby the executive for change. In addition to the cultural challenges due to the silo, WorkflowMax was showing signs of slowing, decreasing sales conversions and increasing churn. The plan involved the sales team to report regionally to break down the silo and align sales channels, marketing team to align with product marketing and my role to be made redundant (no need for a GM) and move in to helping fix the product, or, leave the business if there was no role available. The executive told us it wasn’t going to happen, without explanation and we were to stay in the silo. I left the business. Don’t get me wrong, I was young, misunderestimated how political Xero had become and there are a million things I would have done differently while I was there. However, looking back now, Xero is a siloed business with a culture of exclusion and bullying that impacted significantly on my mental wellbeing. If you’re not being hired to work on the accounting software, reconsider the role

Advice to Management

Listen to your people and customers, think bigger, remove middle management

Pros

Great culture and good opportunities to grow

Cons

Lot of mid level politics and lack of recognition

Pros

Nice facilities and offices, perks like coffee, casual dress, Friday drinks and morning teas. Being in a wider team took stress away when on leave as others shared your workload. My pay was above market but knew this wasn't the same for everyone. While the people could be hit and miss, I did get to work with some fantastic people.

Cons

Extreme micro-management and very rigid way of "how things should be" - weren't willing to allows employees to think outside the box and work autonomously even if it was the best result for the customers. No career opportunities for CX staff outside NZ, and cross-team promotions were always a matter of how much the hiring manager liked you despite your skills. Melbourne office felt like high school, so many... cliques.

Advice to Management

Trust and listen to your employees, particularly those at the bottom of the food chain. Usually they're doing most of the work for way less of the pay and are your biggest assets!

Pros

- Culture, flexible working - People who really care about each other - Technology keeps improving - Diverse workforce - Psychological safety - Always improving

Cons

- Working outside head office can be challenging - Recent organisation changes

Advice to Management

Keep up the good work, there is room for improvement, so long as you don't stop caring I'm sure Xero will continue to be an amazing place to work.

Pros

-Some of the brightest and most intelligent developers to work with.

Cons

-The company went from being relatively flat to quite hierarchical. -Managers need either: 1. More experience or 2. More training. -Seems to be a more who you know approach to progressing in the company.

Pros

Some of the best people I’ve worked with, trying their absolute best despite management making life difficult.

Cons

Too much “crunch” time. Superhuman effort is now expected, leading to burnout and fatigue. HR (or PX as they like to call them) have no idea what they’re doing. A lot of staff turnover - forcing out Sergio after all he’s done for Xero, and others was criminal - leading to a lack of leadership in key areas like security. Turnover and closing down offices leads to insecurity and fear elsewhere - if San Francisco... can go, who’s next? Sham internal promotion processes - interviews not conducted in good faith because a decision has already been made.

Advice to Management

Remember what made you a great company to work for. Remember the #human value because it’s slowly disappearing. When people put in a superhuman effort to meet a deadline because upper management stuffed up the management of a project, don’t expect that to be the default output of those people going forward, or you’ll burn them out. Try to reconnect with your lower level staff, as they are the lifeblood of the... company. Stop the bleeding of good staff who know what they’re doing.