SiteMinder

1.0

14 Feb 2023

Recommend

CEO approval

Business outlook

Pros

SiteMinder is an interesting company that in theory could be quite good. They make software for people who don't know anything about software - so you'd think it'd be a design focused organisation. Where UX would be central to helping SMBs navigate complexity to laser in on the actual valuable parts of running their online or eCommerce presence. The reality is that SiteMinder has about 7 designers total. And the company is actually a large sweatshop where teams produce unintuitive and impossible to use interfaces. Interfaces that have to be supplemented with just about half the population of Manila. All those warm bodies act as the hamster wheel keeping the whole thing running. If you are a customer and you don't understand how to use the software.. don't worry, some poor sod in Manila will configure it for you. It doesn't take much logical deduction to tell that a "scale-up" with a non-scalable, warm body model like this is not going to scale or grow. Which is the great irony of SiteMinder. In theory it could be quite good - but theory is not reality and theory is where the pro's end.

Cons

SiteMinder is a company run by children pretending to be adults. The management dis-empower staff from decision making, keeping everyone in the dark like mushrooms. The result is a culture of fear, blame games and distrust. As a company it has the worst "clique" cultures I have ever experienced. You can come to the office and everyone (other than the lovely receptionist and IT guy) will literally blank face you and not reply to your small talk greetings. If you aren't in the in crowd of certain teams, well you may as well not exist. Which is frankly an awful culture and no wonder that staff generally want to avoid their office at all costs. In terms of office - it's large and modern and highly inconvenient for anyone who isn't a multi-millionaire. Your commute will be excessive because it's 25 minutes walk from the nearest train station. But management don't care as they all sit pretty in their mansions that are within driving distance. The company is one of rampant gaslighting and is quite toxic. Their current stick to beat staff is that remote and hybrid working has made staff lazy. So you better come into the office so we can monitor you (where you can enjoy the toxic and hostile culture!) A problem best articulated by the company's 5 focus areas - the last of which being about staff. Which sums up the problem nicely, at SiteMinder the staff, yes you reading this, are last. The real problem is not individual contributors or the effort of staff. The real problem is management and hangovers from it's start up days. The CEO is a dingbat who is distracted by the newest shiny toy. There is no company vision or strategy. Everything is just floating in the wind, going from shiny "growth" idea to the next shiny "growth" idea. The man couldn't articulate a company strategy even if he asked ChatGPT and got one made up for him. The senior leaders have limited experience in actually leading. Many of them have "grown" with the company from start-up days - i.e. they have been promoted, but they lack the experience, training and personal attributes to actually lead. The result is overbearing control freaks who put their own interest ahead of collaboratively working with their teams and the teams around them. There are also more "Chiefs" than there are on the bloody Chiefs rugby team (Hamilton, NZ ;)). This leads to many small portfolios of competing priorities that fight over the limited headcount and resources that are left over from the huge sweatshop of headcount in Manila. Each of these 10 or 11 Chiefs then fight as feudal lords for their own priorities. The winners are always Sales and the former CFO (now Operations Chief). All of which leads to a dysfunctional company where the staff are last, the software is second last and flogging crap via a humongous boots on the ground sales team is first. Ultimately if you can thrive in a dysfunction like this, or are a malignant sociopath then SiteMinder may be for you.

SiteMinder Response

To say we are disappointed to read this review is an understatement. Your comments are not only derogatory, they are unsubstantiated and disrespectful to the rest of team members at SiteMinder who regularly provide confidential feedback in a constructive manner. It sounds like you may have been impacted by the recent redundancy program which is very unfortunate. Similar to the vast majority of other tech organisations, we made the difficult decision to commence a cost reduction program, which sadly involved some redundancies across the business. We would like to take this opportunity to respond to a couple of areas you have misrepresented: Our People Our values are #wecometogether, #wegrow, #wemakeitsimple and #wehustle and so for anyone else reading this review, please know that we wholeheartedly believe that everyone counts, and ensure that our employees across the globe are treated fairly, respectfully and have the opportunity to grow personally and professionally at SiteMinder. This is reflected in our engagement scores, employee net promoter scores and employee retention which are well above industry benchmarks. Our Award Winning Products We put ourselves in our customers’ shoes and relish feedback to make what we do simple and brilliant. Having recently won eight major awards at the 2023 HotelTechAwards, including the customers choice award, our customers agree! Communication and Strategy Transparency and communication is something we pride ourselves on at SiteMinder. We operate a number of forums which enable employees to stay up to date with our strategic priorities, business results, and progress on key initiatives including monthly All Hands with an anonymous Q&A with our CEO, skip level meetings, monthly business reviews, product roadmaps etc. It’s great to see that you have been part of these forums and are aware of the five priorities, one of which is employee engagement. You do however seem to have misunderstood that all priorities have equal weighting and importance. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss with you further, please reach out your HRBP, or to me directly on dionne.woo@siteminder.com. We wish you all the best for your future success and sincerely hope you find an employer that suits you and your work style better.

You can't lower morale if there isn't any - Manager SiteMinder Employee Review

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