Beware. Company furloughed employees based upon favoritism, and not revenue. Promise of a return to work resulted in being let go. No raises in over two years. Upper Management could have forfeited their bonuses to keep staff on. Brian Field received his bonus of $400k plus in 2020, while many of us struggled to keep a roof over our heads and feed our families.
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Their favorite thing to do is hide behind "the position was eliminated." I've seen this numerous times and it's usually one of two reasons. 1) Personality conflict - I've seen good employees who get a new manager, new manager doesn't like them personally, job is cut. Or the employee was too vocal about things like how difficult it is to get anything done, or trying to do the right thing for their brand/customers. Or, 2) They will eliminate a position and then repost the same job description at a lower, and lesser paying, title (director to manager).
I've seen transparency in how bonuses are calculated go out the window. In 2024 the board decided to pay out less than 20% (I think it was around 14%) of the bonus pool. Yet the exec team got nice bonuses still. In 2025 there are no cash bonuses, just worthless shares of stock that have to wait a year to vest, so basically there's nothing happening financially for bonused employees this year. And along the lines of the "beach house" comment someone else shared, I've heard this as well. "My second home in the bay area," or "sorry, I'm taking this call from my boat at the lake house because the yard people are too loud near the house." This year when the news about bonuses was being delivered, one manager told an employee that they were good with this route because they weren't strapped for cash right now. The manager level employee would love to have much-needed extra cash right now. It's all just so insensitive, tone deaf. Read the room, people!
They just did a round of layoffs in Feb. All of the people I heard about I was surprised at because some were tenured, 10+ years. People who others regularly went to for help. But then I realized it was because of #1 above. These were people who were frustrated at how the company wants us to achieve their goals while simultaneously tying our hands behind our backs.
I can also attest to these statements where C Suites take their massive payouts, and then layoff 100+ people. I personally was promoted 3 times from a regular position to management/team lead etc with zero pay increase for 3 years. In the town halls they would joke about "oh no that was at my beach house not my condo in the city".
After expressing concern for all my brands, I was told I would always have a place within emerald and not to worry. I was just going through a "tough spot" and that my brands were "transitioning" and had nothing to worry about. "The best is yet to come" I kept hearing... The best was me being laid off. This company has zero transparency about any type of strategy (which even upper management cannot seem to grasp and makes knee jerk reactionary decisions.) Company values are non-existent - Noone "embodies" them.
Laid off not even a month later.