Little to no upward mobility unless you are in sales or liked by middle management. People were regularly passed over for promotions because they were not friends with management. These people were never offered feedback on improvement or training. In fact, if you are not in sales you have no leadership training opportunities. This drives a huge rift between sales and support staff, creating resentment as support staff execute the events but sales were the only ones rewarded with lavish holidays. There are also gaps between senior leaders which is exacerbated by the three different office buildings the Bristol HQ is spread across. This leads to inconsistent messaging to staff around expectations as leaders will contradict each other. Presenteeism was also a huge issue. Events do take a lot of work to create and execute, however there were months at a time where we had no work to do and we’re expected to sit at our desks looking busy the whole time. This is really damaging for morale especially as employees want to work and provide value. Many staff members ended up burnt out. The company hires a lot of young staff looking for their first jobs. While that is a good thing as you get a good feel of corporate life and can learn a lot, these employees are very impressionable and middle management often encourages really unhealthy and harmful behaviours.
