Pros
Good group of people to work with Some creative freedom to manage own workload Get exposure to lots of different services
Kontras
Some weeks it feels like nothing happens No routes for progression
Pros
- Good work-life balance with opportunities to work flexibly, including from home (though these opportunities vary by manager). - Some members of staff are extremely supportive of employees reporting to them, delegating appropriate authority, pushing them, and helping them achieve their career goals. You may get one by luck! - Great pension. - Ideal place to work if you're not keen to progress in your career or deliver real substantive change/projects and want an easy ride.
Kontras
- Frequent complaints about bullying/intimidation regarding particular managers and staff members which are not dealt with by senior management (a couple of whom also act in this manner anyway), despite escalation on multiple occasions. Similarly, staff are not trained in people management. - Intense micromanagement from senior management who will not devolve decision-making responsibility to middle management (including in respect to employees reporting to middle managers), which is highly frustrating. - Indecision in regard to strategic direction, which filters down and leaves staff teams in limbo. Once a direction is agreed, it often equates to a slight rebrand of business as usual. - Extremely poor performance (even across many years) is not treated any differently to excellent or mediocre performance. In fact, other members of staff are simply expected to take on extra work to clean up after poor performers. This drags staff motivation down and creates irreparable rifts in teams which senior managers cannot deal with (due to lack of ability to deal with any people-related issues). - Even though salary is apparently based on job title, numerous employees are not being paid the minimum amount of the pay scale associated with their job title (and that stated on adverts for the same job). When challenged, this is ignored and/or aggressive behaviour ensues. This is also associated with ageism, where staff believe salary is believed to align extremely closely with age, rather than performance. It has been suggested that younger employees requesting pay raises in line with the job they are performing are greedy. - Very few training opportunities. Formal training is regarded as completely unnecessary and has actively been cited as dangerous by senior managers as it makes staff more employable from the perspective of other organisations. Thus the lack of training offered seems to be some form of strange employee retention strategy. - Numerous examples of the company attempting to break employment law. - Due to a number of these cons, the company is not regarded as trustworthy by a significant number of staff members. - The organisation needs to practice what it preaches. It encourages councils to be transformative, but the company itself is certainly not.
Pros
- work flexibility - multiple training courses provided - great holidays - supportive management - proper mental health support - diversity
Kontras
- all online (due to COVID) - not a great salary