Pros
· Work/life balance has been good during some periods of my tenure. · The company is supportive if you need to take unexpected leave. · There are some conscientious, intelligent people in pockets of the business. · The company has some fantastic clients from a variety of industries.
Cons
· Management - The company has a middle-management heavy structure, with many managers lacking the necessary skills to drive results. Over the last 2 years, this has contributed to a noticeable decline in overall company performance. During my time at the company, I observed poor leadership, with instances of gaslighting and managerial involvement that negatively impacted client retention. Managers regularly called me directly on Teams to ask me for updates on clients that I didn’t manage and hadn’t managed previously. Often, I had already communicated that this client was not within my remit and that I couldn’t help them. Additionally, there was a lack of clarity regarding roles and responsibilities and feedback provided was often disconnected from factual performance metrics. · Remuneration - The compensation package is significantly below industry standards for comparable roles, compounded by an 18-month pay freeze (still ongoing). As a result, real wages have not covered inflation during the cost of living crisis. Despite a bonus being promised in my contract, there was no clear commission structure for nearly a year. When a new structure was introduced and committed to, leadership adjusted the terms under which commission would be awarded at very short notice. These changes were communicated inadequately, and when I questioned the lack of notice, I was offered a small, one-off payment under the condition that it remain confidential. · Progression – Despite over two and a half years at the company, there were no opportunities for career advancement. Initially, I managed a small team, but following a restructure, I was left with no choice but to adopt an individual contributor role. This also meant taking on additional clients without prior notice or support. To boot, the company fired one of my direct reports without notifying me. · Lack of training and upskilling - Although the company positions itself as a training provider, the only valuable skill I gained was managing upwards. There was a real lack of substantial training and development opportunities. · Workload – Due to an unclear team structure and insufficient support, I found myself performing two full-time roles for almost six months. Despite raising this issue with my manager, I was told my workload was ‘the curse of the capable’ and that there was no immediate plan to address the staffing gap. · Resources – The company’s attempts to consolidate three legacy instances of Salesforce into one group instance were poorly executed. Stakeholders were not adequately consulted and the resulting CRM system we had access to was ineffective. Many customer records were deleted or accidentally duplicated during the process which made the platform a labyrinth of incomprehensible data. This led to the use of outdated Excel spreadsheets for business forecasting, which likely contributed to the company’s overall performance challenges. Additionally, the lack of basic client-facing resources, such as sales decks or platform walkthroughs/FAQs, led to ongoing customer frustration, with the company’s solution to point clients to our website rather than provide the required materials.
