1. Poor Senior Management Structure
Starting from the top, an MD who is so clearly out of touch with the competition, his own employees and the recruitment market as a whole. If you could imagine Jack Duckworth from Coronation Street running the business, you wouldn't be far wrong. Constant conference calls about how Brook Street is the best in the market to mislead current employees became tiresome after a while.
2. Sales, Sales, Sales
"We don't do telesales" I remember a trainer who had been with the business for over 30 years saying. Two minutes later she was telling delegates how the only way to sell is via the telephone. New starters are now expected to make sales calls and obtain 'visits' in order to leave the training initiation to the business. If they fail to do so, they're kept behind like naughty children. It's all about quantity, not quality. This is then filtered down to branch level where somebody who makes 100 calls a day is praised above those who actually work hard.
3. Outdated policies
"LinkedIn is frowned upon. Don't mention headhunting. Don't think Branch Managers are getting mobile phones. No colour printers allowed. We don't believe in email" are some of the things that are frequently said by senior management. It's shocking to believe that business managers (that's a joke in itself) don't have mobile phones nor laptops.
4. QWP - Quality At Work?
They pay a team of people salaries to go to branches on a quarterly basis and check their skirting boards aren't dusty. Genuinely. They they reprimand managers who have lightbulbs that have blown.
5. Staff turnover
It's hardly surprising that nearly every branch is constantly looking for a new manager or a team of consultants. Just see for yourself.
Overall Brook Street is about 30 years behind the rest of the recruitment world, holding on to their ideals of how amazing being chauvinistic, sexist and dated worked in the 1980's. Their senior management is not to be trusted, the regional managers are clueless and are hired on a "her face fits" basis and business managers have no control over their own business. Consultants are treated like numbers and don't get taught recruitment, they get taught telesales. When things start to go wrong, they axe them or let the competition show them what real recruitment is about (if they're lucky). However, if you're a middle-aged to slightly mature woman who wears too much make-up and likes navy blue suits, you'll do well at management level. If you're a very young blonde girl who is clueless, you'll do very well for 8 months as a consultant.
