Pros
- I’d say the people but there aren’t a lot of people left unfortunately. I guess the good ones jump ship when it’s sinking. - The 401k match is really good - The office is pretty and has a lot of windows. This was an upgrade from the dungeon Guthy|Renker use to be in for a long time. - Free fruit (sad but that’s about your only in office perk) - You get reward points for things like Restylane if you have wrinkles - Standing desks and nice chairs that they got right before the acquisition so that was lucky. - Overall Proactiv is a sad place compared to other companies in Los Angeles.
Kontras
Where to start…well first know that this Glassdoor page is primarily a bunch of retail associates from the now defunct mall kiosk business that was actually a separate company. There are only 2 other reviews about the corporate office. Now I’m going to tell you a story about the slow painful death of Proactiv and why if you want a career and job stability you should not ever join them (I doubt they are hiring anyway but just in case). In May 2015 Nestle Skin Health bought proactive as a joint venture with Guthy|Renker. Nestle had a majority ownership so we were all excited. Just as Proactiv had done for 6 years the numbers weren’t good and the goals were impossible to achieve. Somehow Nestle had no idea (crazy huh?) But it wasn’t doing good just like the other reviewer said Guthy|Renker didn’t treat customers well. The technology is so bad and antiquated you couldn’t treat customers right if you wanted to. The company goals are also tied to numbers based on a business model that ropes customers into a weird subscription plan where you get a 30 day supply first and then they send you a 90 day supply and bill you every month. That clearly caught up to the business. Customers are NOT stupid! The President of the company left on his own probably out of self preservation in March ’17, then the CEO was basically fired in July he really loved the brand and it was sad to watch people cried in the audience when they announced it (with him present), the CFO became the boss of the company but didn’t really make decisions and created a fearful environment to make people work harder. My experience is everyone worked REALLY hard but people were made to feel like they were never good enough. By October Nestle Skin Health was sending people out from their Fort Worth Texas offices to help with things like accounting and inventory. Everyone at Proactiv was just working on Q1 and waiting for a “new head of direct response”. That person didn’t come until March of 2018. So in the meantime everyone was fearful for their jobs, there was no plan, there was no leadership in house, I hear that even at Nestle Skin Health is lacking on the leadership front it definitely showed at Proactiv. It was like a Game of Thrones environment among the remaining leadership, and employees started leaving left and right. In one month alone we lost 8 people of probably 60 oh and we started with 120+. For example, there was no one in analytics anymore at all except the head of that department. Most of the creative team left and a bunch of people from marketing. HR didn’t do anything or talk to anyone. It was like the twilight zone with a company losing all its original employees and then random Nestle people showing up and pretending they have been working there forever. At the end of the day it seems pretty clear that Nestle will probably close the office in Los Angeles and move the business to Fort Worth, Texas and get rid of everyone in LA. Nestle already moved their office to Virginia from Glendale why have an office for a tiny little brand like Proacitv that is in trouble out in Los Angeles. Some bullets for you if you aren’t convinced: - No one has been promoted since Nestle came in. - No one has received a full bonus since 2013 when it was Guthy|Renker. You can’t have a “tough year” EVERY year! - People aren’t happy and you can sense that. - No real leadership or people rooting the company and it’s employees on. - They give you free pizza when people leave because they think free pizza makes up for all the negatives. - The executives DON’T care about you or how long you worked on Proactiv or how hard you worked. The main leader of the brand who was with it for 14 years just disappeared one day and never returned. Just a memo about how a new guy was now heading up the brand no mention of her years of service. - The business needs to change to be what customers expect from a big brand like Proactiv but everyone is so worried about saving it…saving what?