Pros
There are some decent people that you meet - but not many
Kontras
- Disclaimer: this is all just my experience and opinion from my 15 months at C&L. However, if you see the other reviews on here, you’ll see that my experience has been shared with numerous other people.
- My overview: Spent 8 years in the industry across 4 companies and I have never had a worse experience than at C&L. If you are looking to get a job here, I would really read all of the reviews here, including mine, and take the decision seriously. Personally, I would recommend that you run a mile. There are plenty of excellent companies in the industry where there are great opportunities, and my view is that this is the opposite of that. Staff turnover is extremely high and results are poor, so I don’t feel like it’s a sustainable or secure company to work for. Management seem to be running it into the ground and it’s only a matter of time until it catches up on them
- I consistently carried more workload than my fair share due to chronic understaffing and underperformance from colleagues
- If you’re a high performer and hard worker, don’t expect to be appreciated or recognised. You’ll only be criticised for the things you aren’t doing (while drowning in work) when the underperformers are never asked why they are doing so little
- Toxic workplace - I got the sense that no one in management really knew what they were doing, or cared. Result: senior leadership put immense pressure on branch managers. Branch managers, also seeming to be underqualified to deal with branch issues, just passed this hostility on to teams.
- Low morale, lack of results, sales team with no motivation with 90% of workload passed to me
- Our branch had consistent sales issues throughout my time there and the effort from senior leadership to help solve these - for example, by hiring capable teams and reviewing the processes and operations that clearly haven't been working - was minimal at best
- Senior leadership not receptive to ideas and feedback from on-the-ground staff in branches, yet seemed to bring no ideas of their own, even when staff were struggling with poor conditions (but with the same sales targets and expectations)
- Many members of staff, at ALL levels of the company, behaved in a way I thought was very unprofessional on many occasions. There’s no justification for disrespecting staff in the workplace
- Overall, this is not a company I would recommend to anyone who has ambitions to progress in this industry. I dealt with members of staff from the bottom to the top and, as a young professional progressing in the industry, I never felt that I had anyone to learn from or speak to when I had questions or issues, which is a really odd feeling. I felt that I stagnated from a professional point of view.
- As others have said, this company likes to talk about mental health and wellbeing but I saw no evidence of any management staff actually living this. The next two points below demonstrate how I was treated, as a high performing member of staff who gave my all to the company, when I was on leave for mental health:
- When I handed my notice in, I had to go off on mental health leave which was primarily caused by the utterly toxic environment I was working in and very hostile treatment by the management team. On my second day of leave, HR sent me a letter asking me to agree to new terms that were never in my employment contract, but presented them as if they were always there: namely that I couldn’t move to my new company due to a non-compete clause that was never present in the contract I signed. For a moment, I was convinced that I had signed this. Luckily I didn’t sign and checked with a solicitor first who assured me that this letter had misrepresented the terms of my contract. Many people could have been misled by this and signed the new document, which could have caused serious potential issues with career progression elsewhere. I get the sense that this was done because the company felt threatened by the fact I had such strong customer relationships (but I’ll never really know), however it’s not my fault that the company was happy to rely on me to carry the sales. When I pointed out that the terms they had stated did not exist in my original contract, I never even got a response.
- Then, the company deducted £500 from my final payslip with no warning, consent or contractual basis. Apparently this is ‘standard practice’ for returning company cars and it would be returned in the next pay cycle, but my contract did not state such a clause, nor did I sign any company car policy agreement, nor was I informed of this either verbally or in writing. As a result, I was left short on essential bills during a time of sick leave, and only after pushing back was I told the money would be refunded - but only after I returned the company car, which missed the point completely. I'd be in full support of this usually but not without prior agreement/consent so that I could at least financially prepare for being £500 short. I can provide evidence of this if required.
- For multiple years, other Glassdoor reviews have detailed fundamental issues with the company and its leadership. These issues have NOT been addressed. This tells me all I need to know about the outlook for this business.
