sales lead

sales associate

security officer

maintenance mechanic

production worker

Purple

I was assigned to Purple by a temp agency before rolling over as a full employee, so my experience was not universal. Less so after the new company leadership severed ties with temp agencies and terminated existing contracts in early 2022.

I found that Purple had excellent products, but that the company's performance both externally and internally was seriously hampered by flawed decisionmaking and organization in the middle and higher levels. Internally, I found the company had amazing culture between colleagues of the same or similar level - in my case support line agents, support supervisors, and their team leads. I had fabulous working and personal relationships with multiple team members and leads.

However, I found that many problems I and my colleagues on the support lines faced on a day to day basis were directly caused by an apparent disconnect between our team leads and the higher-ups they ostensibly reported to. 
Policies regarding attendance and support-line quality assurance, for example, often seemed oddly divorced from the realities of the workplace. 
Attendance is of course important for any support center, but any unscheduled absences not covered by sick time could only be worked off over extremely long periods; one missed day could only be made up with 16 hours of overtime or a full month of perfect attendance. In my case, as a temp, I did not have access to sick time before my rollover. When I was hired in full, the attendance occurrences I had built up stayed with me. Working overtime would have helped, but workforce management gave it out extremely sparingly, despite weekends in particular seeing a desperate need for more agents on the phones.

Quality assurance was ostensibly the measure by which agents would be graded and guided to improve. QA agents would listen to recorded calls and fill out a review form evaluating how well an agent followed policies. Bafflingly, the QA form also featured highly specific ratings of agent rapport with the customer, and many of the grading scales meant that a single minor slip up would tank the agent's QA score for that week.

The problems were exacerbated early in 2022, when the company's new leadership implemented some policy changes to the call center. While we had found through experience that giving a customer a hold-time estimate before placing them on a hold was more effective than not doing so, the new leadership mandated that we no longer provide such estimates and simply place the customer on hold then check in every three minutes.
This review is already long enough, but I could write an entire essay on how disconnected that mandate was from the reality of the phone lines, as well as the complications it caused to the QA process.
While the new leadership pushed for "efficiency" the QA center did not substantially change their grading methods. Leadership asked us to multi-task more instead of using holds, while QA would dock points for doing so.

In late February, the company severed all contracts with temp agencies. Half of my team was terminated, despite many of them being superb agents in their own right. Temp agents could only roll over as full employees if their QA scores were above a certain threshold, but QA reviews were given once a week at best, with greatly reduced volume during the months leading up to the termination, and the evaluated calls were chosen at random.
A single bad call being randomly chosen by QA could cripple an agent's QA score for weeks. So many temp employees were only still in that position due to the flaws in the quality assurance system to begin with.

As a side note, QA scores were also used as a measure for potential promotions or internal hiring. It was a matter of luck if one's score was high enough to allow them to move up to supervisor or post-purchase team positions.

The termination of the temp employees itself was also a point of contention. Multiple of my colleagues were not told directly of the decision, nor were our team leaders. One friend of mine was only informed he had been terminated when he received a call from the temp agency demanding to know why he had been fired, a call that came while he was in the middle of a call with a customer.

Following this layoff, the administration assured us there would be no further layoffs. Then in April myself and several dozen others were pulled into a zoom meeting and informed we were being terminated. Again, our team leaders had not been informed in advance. My leader had to find out from me when a coworker asked in the group chat what the meeting was about.
None of us were provided a solid explanation of why we had been fired. We ranged from relatively new hires and poorly-performing agents to veteran supervisors who had been with the company for years.
A huge percentage of the support center was laid off, and overnight Purple went from having perhaps the greatest and quickest customer support line in the world to having call waiting times in excess of thirty minutes. There simply aren't enough agents on the phones, even with the reduced and altered working hours.

Again, Purple has good products (though perhaps their prices could be adjusted to attract more customers and revenue) and the culture among employees of the same or similar level is the best I've ever found. But the serious reality disconnect between upper leadership and the lower levels caused no shortage of headaches even at the best of times. I greatly enjoyed my time with Purple, and might even be willing to return, but recent decision-making at the top has me worried that the entire company may be headed for a point of no return.

Apply with care, and always have a backup plan.

I discovered Purple through a temp agency and worked for six months before I was moved over as a permanent employee. I worked in the customer service department for a little over a year and developed a love for the company and its values during that time, really believing in the products and the people. The work itself in customer service was very stressful for me, but my managers were always supportive and positive with a genuine concern for my personal growth at the company. Because of that, they encouraged me to work towards my dream career in human resources. That dream is now a reality as I moved from customer service to human resources five months ago.

I look forward to going to work at Purple every single day, and I love seeing how my team and I are able to work together to continue making Purple a place where employees want to be. I have so much support that I rarely feel stressed out, but I am also never bored as I'm constantly learning new things, which is the perfect balance. I also know that there is still room for me to grow and move up in the company, which includes a tuition reimbursement program, giving me the option of pursuing a certification or a master's degree in human resources.

I believe that successful companies put their employees first, and Purple has certainly done that for me!

The job itself isn't bad. Mainly trying to build relationships with various retailers in order to get better placement of product and get buy in from the staff. However, the inner workings of the company is disorganized to the point that there's no clear sense of where it's going. Training is sorely lacking and they expect you to move mountains in order to move the needle in sales when said disorganization is the root cause of the company not performing well. Additionally, upper management is inept and at times, hostile to the lower ranks. The team i was on had two Field Managers who were lacking of management skills, disgustingly rude to the lower ranks and obviously not fit to hold their positions. Inventory issues and a poorly executed business plan has caused a lot of angst among it's customers and its retail partners. Also, my business unit suspended Zoom Meetings and took away our one planning day in order for us to be in the field every working day. This, the cratering of the stock price and the general uneasiness that i felt has led me to believe that this company will not survive the next few years or will be sold to Private Equity. In this role, be prepared to come up with last minute, desperate solutions to impossible problems caused by other people at Purple.

The lowest staffed shift (weekend night shift) is expected to hit the same numbers as the highest staffed shift, and when they don't hit the goal they get a lecture about productivity. Managers seem to think it's ok for 45 people to hurt themselves hitting a goal that 80 can hit effortlessly.
They hire upper management from outside, so there's no chance of advancing in this company.
There's a lot of inconsistency between the different shifts and absolutely no communication. Things that are allowed on one shift aren't allowed on another, like the production managers just make up their own rules as they go along. There's no standardized procedure.
Once you're put in an area, you're stuck there for life. They'll tell you to submit a resume for different areas hiring in the warehouse and then they'll hire from the outside.
They've also been promising raises for over a year to regular employees while giving their leads and lift drivers multiple raises. So if you like busting yourself for mediocre pay and empty promises, this job is for you.
They also just recently cut everybody's PTO by 36 hours.

My experience at this then start-up was delivering for an extremely fast-paced and challenging environment. Unfortunately, it was also an unforgiving and unsupportive workplace, lacking in team cohesion. It was the most toxic environment I've ever encountered. I felt set up for failure and isolated, as colleagues chose to talk behind my back and others rather than communicate directly. By the time I left, the hostility was palpable, and I had to restrict access to my team's space to maintain a productive working environment. Despite not being one to complain and addressing issues directly, leadership accepted false narratives without proper investigation or intervention; leading to long-term misunderstandings. When I sought help in various areas from the team, I was treated like a pariah instead of being recognized for the substantial contributions I consistently delivered. Despite being one of the top contributors in terms of deliverables, I felt I was treated the worst because I refused to be a jerk to my peers.

At first Purple seemed like a great place to work at. As time went by, I noticed that some managers will make promises to many workers and not follow through with them (Creating distrust). The handbook rules and policies are not being followed. Employees who come through the door as a favor to someone in a leadership role feel invincible, like the rules don't apply to them. They also get positions that they are not qualified for. The company at this location loses a lot of revenue due to work procedures not being followed. Purple could be a great place to work at if it chose leadership that is business minded and not here for personal interest/gain. The atmosphere is like being on a reality show where people try to build alliances in order to secure their positions/promotions. If I had to describe Purple in a nutshell, I would say this place is Unethical, lacks integrity, and unprofessional.

Working for Purple overall has been great for me! They seem to really value growth for their employees and coaching to get them to be ready for promotions both internally and externally. Communication for me within my department has been really great. As well as valuing employee morale. The only things the company is lacking/behind on are a few inclusivity things like celebrating pride month, Latin heritage month or black history month. Even just posting on social medias to just acknowledge them. They don’t give Juneteenth off as a paid holiday. They don’t encourage their employees to use sick day for mental health as well as physical illnesses. I don’t knock the company much for any of this since my personal work experience has been great and I’ve never personally felt prejudice from individuals in the company but it is 2022 and this stuff does matter. 

Having a set schedule is nice, and the four days off each week are definitely worth it. However, you're just another number to them. You could die today and they would replace you with a temp worker by nightfall.
There's no reward for good work ethic and no punishment for poor work ethic. Shifts with less people are expected to hit the same numbers as shifts with more people, and if you don't then you're in trouble. They used to treat their employees really well back in the early days, but now that the company has opened pop-up stores and started selling in bigger retail outlets they treat their employees terribly. Production managers can't be bothered to take the time to talk to their employees, everything has to be passed down by chain of command. It creates a work culture where it seems the production managers are better than us lowly production laborers. You can move up as long as you grovel and don't ask questions.

Purple once had a positive culture and was a great place to work. Not too long ago this changed as the company took a turn for the worse lacking in sales and the ability to start up a new manufacturing site. VP’s got stressed and took out their stress on each other and those reporting to them. Would regularly hear VP’s arguing with each other on the work floor, making selfish decisions to hurt their peer’s reputation which hurt everyone under them. 2 of them even stopped talking to each other for weeks on end because they couldn’t get along. Their constant changing of decisions effected morale and they fired or drove out lots of individuals who didn’t deserve it. The frontline supervisors and laborers are amazing and deserve more support from upper management.

Working in a showroom for Purple is a great job. It’s very laid back and relaxed and there isn’t a lot that goes into the average work day. 

Upper management can sometimes be a pain as it seems there is some lack of communication however they’re helpful sometimes.

The compensation would be amazing however they just recently started cracking down on KPI’s and Sales goals which is frustrating because you don’t get paid commission in a showroom. So basically you have to fight to meet a certain goal and push people to buy a product that’s going to make the company thousands off of one sale with no payout for the sale. Kind of unusual for a sales job but they are new to showrooms so it’s expected.

Overall, it’s not a horrible place to work. I cant speak for anyone in the warehouse or fulfillment centers but as a showroom employee my time at Purple has been amazing.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales lead 9 salaries reported	$18.67 per hour
Sales associate 4 salaries reported	$15.75 per hour
Security officer 1 salary reported	$20.00 per hour
Maintenance mechanic 2 salaries reported	$32.50 per hour
Production worker 7 salaries reported	$17.71 per hour

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