Hub Group Reviews

- Annual RIF's over the past five years are used to get rid of expensive, tenured, knowledgeable, and generally effective employees. These generally result in doing more with less so morale is fairly anemic. The frequency in RIF’s has only increased. - Work-life balance for leadership leads something to be desired. The company flirts with the idea of providing after-hours coverage but doesn’t staff it and there is little to no accountability with the after-hours team so a lot of those emergencies and workflows go to the day to day leadership roles. 50-60 hours a week average plus always scanning your phone is a normal commitment for a manager on up so factor that in with the increase proposed on a promotion. Again, not a whole lot of flexibility in telecommuting. - The company since the early 2000s has been focused on the centralization of its staff to corporate. Today a hand-full of the former regional network offices exist. With the second HQ building going up it will only be a matter of time before Dave becomes tired of paying for an empty building and more positions will be relocated to corporate. - Juniors presence (started as a Director of acquisitions, currently COO and eventually will be CEO) has made the office culture contentious at best and toxic at worst. His style of leading is divisive and is always based on positional power, his only way to motivate is through fear. He's a commercial guy, has zero experience on the front line, doesn’t get the operations side, and cares only about the customer experience. He knows everything, can never be wrong, is emotional, and surrounds himself with yes and axemen. His net sum of experience all stems from nepotism - both inside and outside the company, and his lack of ever having to work for something shows in his delivery and interactions. It’s not horribly reassuring when his people have to deliver messages that “he’s getting better” at leading as an encouragement to those downrank. Yes, the stories about violent and unprofessional reactions are true. - Hub still thinks and operates like a brokerage company despite owning assets. The mantra that it is all about the customer experience leaves you myopic and exposed when you have costs adding up from idle drivers/trucks/containers and you have no leverage with your accounts. It also helps worsen the feast/famine cycle which only increases overhead. - Honestly, issues sit on both sides and at the end of the day, and the only thing everyone is “All In” on is pointing the finger at each other. Account Management is ill-equipped and ineffective with their accounts and feels Operations doesn’t get what they go through, and likewise, Operations is ill-equipped and ineffective in managing capacity/fleet and feels Account Management doesn’t get what they go through. The convergence of those two dynamics creates a lot of underlying tension and missed opportunities. - You, as a business leader, are told you own your business and are accountable for the results however what’s really expected is for you to just execute what comes downstream. You can't even staff effectively without first getting the CEO to sign off on an OPR whether it be a replacement or new add. If you are accountable then allow your people to make business decisions including financial, set budgets for the year, and hold people accountable to them. All these nuances highlight an overall lack of trust from the executive level for the people they hired to run the day-to-day.

Hub Group maintains a culture of fear. Nepotism and favoritism run rampant. Differing viewpoints from anyone without the family name are not welcome. This is a public company run like a private company. Senior leadership is too afraid of the family to voice their concerns to anyone. Employees are simply not valued. Where is the Board in all this? Never ending cost-cutting and a half dozen major reductions in force over last 2 years despite reportedly record financial results. Mass layoffs, restructured compensation and reduced bonuses for employees, meanwhile the family has seen its compensation rise steadily over that time. Compensation decisions are arbitrarily decided, without communication behind the decision and often overriding the recommendation of the employee’s direct manager. Bonuses are routinely denied despite employees’ satisfying pre-established metrics (and therefore earned and deserved). Multiple times over the past couple years, offers were pulled from recruits after they had been accepted and already quit their previous job. Several employees have been fired right before bonuses to avoid paying them out.