If you liked school, this is a good place to work. Responsible employer.
Pros
They are a very responsible employer with good benefits. Free lunches and staff sales were good, but prices have increased. The team was nice, although changed a lot. Most people just trying to get on and get the job done. The hire a lot of graduates and young people, which is a good stepping stone for the start of their working careers. They take a lot of time in sharing information and resources for key discussions points in society (BLM, mental health awareness, cultural and religious festivities across the world). A lot of the staff want to make it work and succeed here.
Cons
Very hierarchical. Never seen org charts 12 people deep before. Lots of middle managements who are unable to make any decisions or sign offs. (that is reserved a select few at the top), so it's impossible to really implement any change. Due to this, everything is essentially a tick box exercise with no real ownership over whether outcome are met to any standard. As no-one has any real ability to implement change, there is a heavy micro-management culture and obsession with very minor tasks and roles. It can be a very suffocating environment. When people lack autonomy, they won't give you any of their creativity. Everything is slow and painful, simple decisions which you would assume could be made very easily, will be fussed over with a lot of dramatics and changes injected, with a lot of interference and 'necessary' interjections from many areas of the business. Departments very reluctant to work together, making a very cold and difficult environment to deliver. Makes it almost impossible to develop relationships and learn other areas of the business. They have some very impressive staff, but seem to be subjugated to minor roles or positions due to managements inability to promote internally rather than recruiting externally. You will wait years and years before you see any potential opportunity for mobility. Many other companies would kill to snap up the talent on a higher salary and better position. Although I say they are a responsible employer, the bottom line is the most important thing. It was inappropriate of them to spend a lot of money on hot air balloons the same week they made redundancies across the business. I found there to be a lot of paranoia amongst colleagues and a lot of mistrust between the business and the workers. Most likely due to experience surveys being advertised as anonymous, which did not stay that way in the past.
