Shallow and meaningless American-style corporate mentality is ever-present, management bombards staff with empty slogans that don’t have any representation in reality. Obsession with trivial statistics, targets, logs and time-sheets. Micromanagement and bullying is common. Appalling lack of communication, everything is kept secret from the staff till the last moment. No career progression or development available (unless you are the kind of individual that likes to stab people in the back and daily sucks up to the management, then maybe after 4 years you will become a team leader/slave driver, once your boss moved up the ranks), below average pay with laughable pay rises (this leads to talent desertion and shortage of knowledgeable staff). If you are internally promoted don't expect a pay rise, even after 3 years. Management ranks are full of incompetent individuals that only know how to play the corporate system ("don't hate the player, hate the game"?) so they can make themselves look good on paper, in reality they can often be moronic bullies damaging the company in the short and long run, but the management ranks from top to bottom cover one another’s backs, there is no accountability, even when they lose the company £100,000+ in contracts, due to their feckless and arrogant behaviour, it gets hushed up and they still get some sort of an award at the end of the year, surreal! They run it like their own little sweat shop, some junior managers hire their own inexperienced and unqualified mates and family through the back door, without any screening process (hard to believe this is happening in a 10,000+ staff, £3 billion company!). All this goes unnoticed or ignored by the senior management, even when reported, and leads to a hostile and frustrating work environment.
Hard-working staff with many years of service are made redundant at a click of a finger, no redeployment.
The CEO has never been to the branch, doesn't matter how successful it’s been... he doesn't mind going abroad every week though. All he cares about is the shareholders, not his staff (not uncommon in the XXI century I suppose). I, for one, won't mention his blog ;)
P.S. Don’t get fooled by the 5 stars, 2 lines, no real criticism, superficial reviews that get posted here by their own HR to bump up their dismal ratings, this is the sort of tactics that they use.
