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Catapult Sports

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Negligent in hiring and redundancy process as well as unethical HR - Anonymous employee Catapult Sports Employee Review

1.0
Oct 21, 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

People within the teams are friendly and welcoming in all global locations

Cons

I have never felt a need to write a review about a company and therefore this feels extremely strange but also very necessary for this very corporate-looking company to ensure future employees have full transparency. I was recently made redundant (September) despite being hired in July. I was made redundant with the other 10% of employees due to a large restructuring. I cannot fathom how a business continues to hire whilst heading towards such a financial struggle. Reducing the workforce by 10% is not a light decision and the financial situation would have been known prior to my hire and arrival. Whilst interviewing, I asked the Vice President of the department that I was heading into (who would be my manager), what the business's financial position was. We discussed last year, the year to date and further information was volunteered that the business was investing in growing further. Based on the restructuring and performance records the information provide was untrue. For a person with such high responsibility within this business, to make such false statements that would and did sway a person into accepting a job is immoral and unethical. Based on this information, I didn't look further into Company House etc as I have noticed in previous company investigations, Company House isn't always the clearest with groups. Since digging further, I did notice that the CEO, CFO and Chairman all received their Bonus' from last year which again is difficult to comprehend when a business is in such a financial disposition. I believe that these recent restructures/cuts are due to ensuring that the C suite is paid their bonus' again this year. Within the redundancy process, I asked for the new structure to be able to propose alternative positions instead of being made redundant. I was only provided it within the second meeting for 20 seconds which was when I was supposed to make my proposal. Again, with such a large restructure, how would someone be able to propose a position without seeing this structure. From a fair perspective, if it wasn't available, why would a HR redundancy officer confirm that it could be provided? There were also various discrepancies within the appeal report which I have had to ask to be amended but provides me with zero faith that the appeal was reviewed accurately. My employment record /cv now has 2.5 months of a role that is particularly damaging and there is zero accountability being held for this. Additionally, at this level, roles take longer to apply for and interview. again, no accountability. There were false statements regarding the business's financial position included in my interview which persuaded me to take the role and leave a permanent job which sits under tort of deceit and employment law as will now suffer losses if I am not able to gain employment within the next 30 days. This has not been acknowledged by the HR team and therefore indicates their ethical standing. -------------- Aside from the above, from arriving, I did have immediate concerns with how the business was being run and on reflection can see why the business is in such poor a financial position: 1. There was no central place where contracts were held for suppliers (e.g tech) 2. There was no clear and defined spend budget for the overall department 3. The finance team were unable to run a cost centre report to understand where the department's spend was (this was a responsibility for my role to know). The finance team told me: "We don’t have how to pull this kind of report currently. Besides we have many subscription invoices that are not paid by AP. Some are paid by credit card and some are paid and claimed through the employee’s expense claim". In every other business, all costs roll into each department's cost centre regardless of the payment method 4. When (Sales) budgets were missed, there were zero action plans in place to make up the loss and it was mentioned that these were "stretch budgets" or "poor forecasting" of past employees 5. The team/department was an "emerging markets" or business development area of the business but with zero structure (Tradeplans, content budget) 6. The business doesn't seem to want to make money based on the strategic and trading proficiencies missing from the business

Explore other reviews about Catapult Sports

5.0
May 19, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great product, industry leader, good people inside the company. Fun place to work.

Cons

Hit a ceiling and there wasn’t any upwards growth into more senior roles.

1.0
Jul 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

interesting products and impressive customers

Cons

No flexibility, worked well over 8 hours, no life balance, CEO and leadership are not transparent and there is no clear direction.

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