Pros
Mostly friendly ground level staff, if a bit cliquey. Clients are big names in the film industry. Supportive atmosphere amongst lower level staff.
Kontras
While I was working at the company I became gravely ill, and they refused to budge on the 10 days sick leave. While I was later granted extra days, this wasn’t without a fight from my line manager, as I wasn’t capable of negotiating. I have it on good authority that the HR director said I ‘could have been off for a month with a chest infection’, and that ‘if they bent the rules for me, they’d have to do it for everyone’. My situation was much, much more serious than a chest infection. When I returned to work, I ended up being pressured into coming back too fast, setting myself back in the process, eventually leading to me quitting my job. Management paid me very little regard outside of lip service, and while I was told I could ‘just work my contracted hours’ (thanks), my workload was not reduced accordingly, meaning I had to cram the same amount of work into 2/3 of the time. Despite claiming to be ‘employee centric’ they treat their staff like total garbage when they need support. It’s an insult. I’m now at a tiny agency where their policy is 4 weeks full pay, which has been a god send following a relapse. It also goes to show that the ‘businesses need to make money’ argument doesn’t hold any water, especially on a company of Think Jam’s scale. Other than this, the workload was unmanageable, and there was very much a culture of fear. Members of the PR and Social team were often in tears. There’s very much a client comes first attitude, no matter how daft or unrealistic their request, or how much stress it puts on the team. One director in particular was a bully, but a ‘golden goose’ to the CEO, so never saw reprisal. I was required to sign a waiver to the EU working hours regulation on joining. They’re very legally savvy. It was incredibly top heavy, lots and lots of managers and directors, very few staff to actually do the work.