Pros
- Mostly great co-workers
- Interesting and challenging projects
- Building and facilities
Kontras
- The “flat structure” is often used as a justification to push more responsibility onto people without corresponding salary or recognition
- Salary bands and pay rises are a complete black box, with opaque and often arbitrary decisions made by people who do not know the individual or their contribution
- Tenure and time served matter more than performance when it comes to progression and pay
- High performers are frequently not recognised or retained, while underperformance is tolerated or even rewarded in some cases
- There is a noticeable culture of complacency in parts of the organisation
- Some elements of culture feel old-school and overly hierarchical in practice, despite what is stated. Outdated attitude towards flexible working
- Many (senior) managers lack basic people management skills
- There is very little meaningful training or development on offer
- Multi-million-pound payouts to former shareholders make it feel like employees are working to fund someone else's retirement rather than being fairly rewarded for creating value
- Feedback on these issues is often dismissed with comments like “grass is greener elsewhere” rather than being addressed