Pros
Qualtrics used to be a great place to work, then a few things happened in 2023 that changed that. (See Cons.)
Cons
-In January 2023, Qualtrics laid off about 270 employees (about 5% of its workforce). -On February 6, 2023, the Return-to-Work (RTO) occurred, which required employees to return to work in the office 4 out of 5 days a week. RTO was in contrast to the hybrid work model implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This change was huge to employees who had been hired fully remote or hybrid. Qualtrics has been and, in a moment, can be a fully remote company. We didn't need to return to the office. And the executives shared no research backing up their claims that working in the office is more effective. RTO was hugely impactful to employee morale and trust in leadership, because employee feedback was not sought before or after the change. You would think that a company, THE company, championing experience management would seek employee feedback. In fact, once hearing how much employees disapproved, not just of RTO itself but how RTO was implemented, the CEO and C-Suite executives promised improvement to the process of any change like this moving forward. That improvement has yet to occur. -On June 28, 2023, Silver Lake private equity firm acquired Qualtrics and took it from public to private. This is a huge con, because of what came next. -August and September 2023, rumors started spreading about "big changes," reorganization, and potential layoffs. This negatively impacted the work environment and employee morale, which proved to have merit. -On October 4, 2023, Qualtrics laid off about 780 people (about 15% of its workforce). This can't be overstated because of several things, including that managers were not involved in the decision of who was laid off on their own teams. Already understaffed teams were dissected and cut off at the ankles. It turns out, that's not all. This is only the beginning. Silver Lake hopes to destroy the work environment and morale so much that up to 2,000 employees will either be laid off or choose to leave (so another layoff doesn't have to be announced publicly). This is already happening. I'm aware of a coworker with an employee rating of 5 out of 5 (1=greatly below expectations; 2=below expectations; 3=meets expectations (par for the course); 4=exceeds expectations; 5=greatly exceeds expectations) who wasn't laid off but is already looking for another job. Don't let the idea of the need for "reorganization" fool you. The layoffs happened because of Silver Lake's, the executives', and previous owners' greed and "profitability." When Qualtrics was sold to Silver Lake, this liquidity event made them all a lot of money. But it left the October 4 laid off employees in the dust. For example, the employees had restricted stock units (RSUs) that would be paid at the vesting schedule (determined prior to the June 28, 2023 acquisition) but could only be paid out if the employee was still employed. In other words, because Silver Lake and the executives laid off 780 employees, they not only saved in all those million$ in compensation and benefits, but they also don't have to pay out all the unpaid RSUs. The laid off employees, including me, get nothing. Trust me, this is not the time to seek a job at this company. Gone are the days of the Ryan Smith-led Qualtrics.