QA reviews

There are many reasons why I left QA but the main one was that I didn't enjoy working there. Despite the potential opportunities and some wonderful people who I worked with, the experience was marred by constant procedural changes that were implemented without any consideration to their impact on staff moral and client experience. A big problem was the encouragement of staff to work unpaid overtime through praise of those who did and accepted all that management passed down from above without question. Within a 9 month period before I left the environment had become toxic and difficult to function effectively within. The worst part was the poor communication within the company e.g. if a particular email was missed then you could potentially be marked for some form of performance management. The final straw came when a large conference was arranged in London (2019) for all the coaches. Let's just say that's 6 hours of my life I will never get back and QA will never get the money it spent and the other coaches time back either. Silly Uninformative Muddled Offal (SUMO) The really sad thing is that I left some really good people there and some excellent learners, all of whom I wanted to see achieve their EPA. My advice to anyone considering a role at QA is read the 1 & 2 star comments carefully first, then look to see if there is anyone else hiring.

This company only works out what to do with you after you start. In the seven months I worked there I never received a job description. For weeks on I sat around with nothing to do. Other team members could not be bothered to show me how to do anything. Basically, the training here is non-existent. You are just expected to know how their systems work and if you don't it is your fault. Very often the person "training" you has also had no training and doesn't know how to do anything or is teaching you to do it the wrong way. My colleagues could not be bothered to show me how to do anything and preferred to do it themselves. For all the promises that this company makes it is actually not learning orientated at all. Very likely you will end up doing a completely different role to the one you were hired for. They have a few broken system which people are just expected to endlessly work around so that they don't have to get fixed. Almost every single task I did here had to be redone because either I was not given the correct instructions to start with or I wasn't shown how to do it properly on the system. This is the norm here. If a task takes one day to complete somewhere else it will take 2 days here. Nobody here takes responsibility for anything. Skills coaches are overworked. They are given too many pupils to look after and they are expected to fix inherited problems at a very short notice. Quite a few of them "fail" their probationary period. There is no (constructive) feedback at any stage. I repeat, this is not a learning-orientated employer. During the probationary period you are basically working on the terms of a contractor: no sick leave, a week's notice, no medical insurance etc. The probationary period is meant to last 6 months after which... you simply carry on working on the same terms. They hope you will not notice that in spite of what it says in the contract you are still not on permanent terms. They try and prolong this status for as long as they can because it is good for their pocket. The people that work here are absolutely the worst. This is the most unwelcome I have ever felt as a new start anywhere I have worked. They are rude/aggressive and start arguments with new staff about such things as the blinds being up or down. And when they do you really will feel like you are in the pub talking to long-term drunks. Some of them respond to a greeting with a frown. One told me directly that he is going to speak to my manager in order to move me away from himself! Yes! I had to endure this only a couple of weeks after starting. This is the kind of people that work here. They are also obviously not bothered about their jobs. The behaviour I saw in the IT staff was beyond rude. When you enter their office to speak to them they ignore you, they are busy with their own personal talk and then they pull a face when they realise they have to speak with you. Shockingly unprofessional. Management are people who were hired when this company was small. They have a very limited skills' set. Even though the company is now trying to hire people of a higher calibre the old guard management feel threatened by these people and tell them that if they don't like it this is not the right place for them to work. Several people that started at the same time as me were told this. QA management are not prepared to change to a more professional working style and I personally don't see that they can. They genuinely haven't got the skills for this. So there is a never-ending battle in the workplace between the newly brought-in professionals and the old-style mangers who try to push the newcomers out. Most people leave here within a few months and it tends to be people who cannot be employed elsewhere who stay here long-term. If you decide to go for this, you will know what I mean the minute you walk in through the door. Getting any payslips off them was a pain. They have a bad electronic system which is down most of the time and HR, the people who look after it, are unable to give accurate instructions on how it works, because they don't know themselves. HR here is non-existent and takes 2 weeks to reply to an email. They have literally got no written-down policies. You are at the mercy of your unprofessional manager who can use various vague actions in order to scaremonger you every time you tell him that the team could be working better and he himself could be doing things more efficiently. I also heard managers discussing staff performance in the office in the presence of other staff. The London office is in an inconvenient location in East London, away from any services or lunch chains. The office itself is beyond crammed with poor air quality and often staff have to sit on bar stools in the kitchen all day just so they can work from the office. Please, note this does not comply with health and safety legislation. This company is not bothered with health and safety though. The desks are so crammed next to each other that every time someone tries to walk past you get pushed into your desk with your spine possibly in an awkward angle. You could get a serious injury her. All in all, this is a really bad employer, dishonest with their intentions and incompetent as well. If you have other job offers this is the one to decline. If you have nothing else, just keep looking. Working here has been a bad career move for me. It was difficult to find another job after this one because other employers cannot imagine how bad things are at QA and you will just not look serious/committed when you leave this after only a few months which is what most people do...