Pros
Well respected company in its sectors
Kontras
Fast pace This is good in some respects, but things can change over night with little concern or regard of the people its actually impacting and the people that make the company a success - the employees. Cliques There are a lot of cliques. If you are someone with integrity, works hard and treats others with respect, then you probably won't fit in well, but it's great if you have no problem kissing up to the right people, don't care how you treat people, love gossiping and bringing others down. Management Many managers really shouldn't be managers - they are childish, emotional, dismissive, and quite frankly grossly incompetent. How do they become managers you ask, its because they do a really good job of kissing up, throwing others under the bus and caring only about them. This company doesn't really know what it means to work together as a team, it's usually our department vs theirs even though they talk endlessly about "collaboration". You will find here that people will be with the company for only a year or two then have others on the other hand who have been there for 10+ years.. make of that what you will. Frankly I think many of leadership and management need to go, they repeat the same ideas and the same way of doing things and wonder why the company doesn’t grow more than they have - they have the same way of thinking which doesn't change. They have a theme of promoting useless people then realising they are useless when its too late because they fail to understand what value people actually bring. There was a senior person in one of the departments, absolutely useless and everyone spoke of this openly… he was there for a while… and there are others who are literally dragging down the reputation of this company and are paid handsomely. A joke. How is it that employees can tell these people aren’t fit for their job but leadership can’t?? Communication Communication throughout the company is better than it used to be but no where near where it should be. Not quite sure what value the marketing department have for internal comms at all - yes they inform on very basic things but not the very important changes that actually affect peoples jobs and responsibilities. Like I said, they will make changes anytime and expect you to just get on with it, zero notice, zero explanation and zero understanding their side on how those changes will impact the business so often feels like they just make emotional decisions and think about the impact later when its too late. They talk about forward thinking and innovation a lot but in reality this doesn't really exist. I feel for the founder because his heart is in the right place but unfortunately I think the rest of leadership and management let it all down. This company needs a refresh starting from the top. I don't think anyone (including a lot of leadership) even know what the Prodrive strategy is. Not sure they even have one... so if leadership don't have a company strategy, and therefore can’t communicate this to employees, how do they expect employees to get on board and help with driving success? This leads to my next point which is this company has no barely any progression. You will be stuck doing the same thing for a very long time. Pay is below market rate but you are expected to work your backside off, and get very little appreciation. Oh and a lot of people don’t actually know what they’re doing, when it should be done and why. They’re just told by management to do it and get on with it. The company never conducts surveys to get feedback from its employees because it doesn’t care, again its do what you are told to do or get out. Professional development Professional development? Forget about it, you have an annual review meeting with your manager and that's it. No training available, no courses, no certifications. Nothing. But I guess if you are happy doing the same thing for years and years and not developing any further this is for you. I mentioned Prodrive talks about forward thinking a lot, but for example you are required to work in the office 5 days a week.... in fact if the odd person says they're working from home they'll get funny looks. Same as if you say you’re completely switching off when you're on annual leave - you are expected to have access to emails and or your phone. I would say make sure you keep a record of promises made to you by your manager or agreed plans because they will most likely pretend they didn’t make any promises or have certain discussions with you. The company has a tough time hiring and retaining good talent because smart people come in see this is a house on fire and get the heck out. Diversity Diversity here is nearly non existent, especially in leadership/management. Nearly 100% men, white of course, middle aged of course. I have seen how they talk to some women, they talk over, brush them off, and are just flat out rude in a way they would never talk to a man, especially any man in leadership. I think women here must feel pretty out of place and hats off to them for working in a place like this. I'm not saying all of them are like this, but a few of them are and this shouldn't be happening. HR is awful. They are some of the most miserable people I have ever come across in the workplace. Only one person here does try but the rest of entire team let it down so much. They come across as snobby and not caring at all. Just absolutely miserable and unapproachable - you can walk into the office and no one even turns to smile at you or acknowledge your presence. To be honest though, nearly all the departments are like this when you walk though are even though people are required to work 5 days in the office, people just use Teams to message and even make calls even when someone is a minute walk from you!!! So much for that collaboration. Everything is broken here and they really need to seriously consider changing things up big time top to bottom. I'll finish off by saying, at Prodrive, you will sooner than later either join the majority of people who just coast on by doing the bare minimum because you're just tired of trying and just take what they are given and become lazy losing sight of the fact they're wasting their prime years, or you'll make a plan to get out.