What is the salary like at Little Dot Studios?

Pros

Great office space, working from home, prestigious clients

Cons

Cliques, poor employee benefits, bad management goes unacknowledged, salaries are still not high enough, little room for progression

Pros

Great people, great benefits and salary

Cons

The company as a whole is very siloed; processes don't seem to be connected to each other internally. Pivoting a lot, internal operations don't seem to match goals. Info does not trickle down from the top.

Advice to Management

Be in sync, be more transparent, come to a consensus before acting, and clarify operational goals.

Pros

The people at little dots are super friendly, it’s really easy to make friends here. Just great vibes overall!

Cons

The pay isn't great unfortunately.

Pros

- There are some really lovely and welcoming people here. - You'll get to work with some of the biggest names in the industry. - The location of the office and hybrid working. It’s a graduate job. Get some experience. Meet some lovely people. Then move on.

Cons

- The pay is SO bad. You cannot live comfortably on a Little Dot salary. - Promotions are reviewed once a year at Christmas. You are expected to do the role you’re trying to progress to before your pay is reflected. This means you will work over your pay band for over a year. You will also be balancing the workload of your current role, AND then the responsibilities of the role above you. So if you’re trying to be promoted to a managerial position, you’ll begin managing team members without formal training. The promotion is not guaranteed, so be ready for disappointment. - Lad culture is alive and kicking. It is harder to thrive as a woman at Little Dot and to form the same working relationships with male managers than if you were another male trying to progress on the team. - Recognition and praise is hard to come by, especially if you are not a dominant/popular guy on the team. - You feel like a hamster on a wheel. You are mostly doing the same tasks every single day. It gets repetitive, stale, and you stop gaining any new skills. Plus, your workload is too big, and they keep on-boarding new projects. Most teams express being TIRED.

Pros

Genuinely care about their staff and have maintained a hybrid work model even when a large number of media companies are reversing that decision which I'm hugely grateful for.

Cons

Not Little Dot Specific but the financial crisis has impacted salaries across the industry.

Pros

- LDS by far has the nicest group of people I've ever worked with. I felt very welcome when I joined, and everyone despite their level was open to getting to know me and making my work enjoyable from the start. .- Hybrid working and flexible hours - Paid training opportunities - Perkbox discounts - Office drinks, breakfast, company's merch - Amazing office and office team - Yearly bonus at Christmas - Cool projects and top TV brands to work with on. Out of the above benefits, it is the people that make this company so great. At times it felt like university all over again as we all got on so well and it didn't feel like work.

Cons

My cons for LDS very much echo many of the other reviews I have seen below sadly. - Low salaries that don't keep up with the cost of living or market rate for a role. I was approached multiple times for roles, one of which I subsequently took which made me realise LDS were paying 30-40% lower than other competing companies. - This company has their favorite employees, the ones who've been there since the beginning and get the big opportunities not because they work the hardest, but because they've been there the longest. This results in people becoming managers when they're clearly not ready, which is very demotivating to the team below when badly managed and not listened to. This isn't right when the employees who work incredibly hard over 1-3 years don't get the same attention and opportunities when they're ready to progress. - Hard to progress. LDS only promote at the end of the year, and some of the people that get promoted vs others are the people who have become part of the furniture at the company. I watched someone be promoted twice in the almost 2 years I was there, just because they'd been there since the beginning. - Great place to start and build skills but not to build a career. Some employees referred to it as a 'media school' - this shouldn't be the case when people want to grow. - Cliquey, lad culture. There is a particular type of person that thrives in Little Dot - the loud, comical lads who can laugh their way into opportunities.

Advice to Management

Please review your salaries and promotion scheme. I would have stayed with you if you were able to match those of the other companies in the industry, because I simply couldn't afford to work for you with the rising cost of living. It would be great if people are rewarded as a result of the hard work they put in, not just because they tick the box of doing a year of service. Sadly lots of mid-senior level people are leaving because of the above, leaving nothing but juniors to do the work which will be detrimental to your growth, please find a way to nurtute the more senior talent and you will be an amazing company to work for!

Pros

Working on entertaining shows, large sporting events, etc. Good flexible working, people are friendly

Cons

Pay could be better, work can be repetitive.

Pros

Office culture Good location Growing company

Cons

Low salary Not a lot of potential for progression

Pros

- LDS has some of the nicest people you'll come across in the industry, everyone is approachable and willing to help - Good company culture, fun socials, a lot of amazing initiatives such as a Digital Nomad policy where anyone can work 2 weeks a calendar year outside of the UK, a sabbatical policy, and many more - Perkbox discounts - Great office location in the middle of Shoreditch - Office drinks every week - Company merch - Adobe suite training twice a year that is paid for The biggest 'pro' by far is the people that make LDS so much fun, and who are super hard-working and crazy talented. It was a joy to see some colleagues produce their work that was without a doubt industry-leading. Dan Jones also seems like a great CEO, genuinely carrying and very approachable.

Cons

Sad to say that many of my cons are echo-ing many of the other reviews I have seen on here (that haven't been posted by the internal marketing team lol). - Very little career progression: great place to start and build valuable skills but not to build a career. I have heard some ex-colleagues referring to LDS as a 'media school', and I completely agree. It is also genuinely very hard to progress as promotions and salary reviews happen only once a year in December - Favourite employees: aka the people who have been at LDS the longest. It always is the same group of people that are offered 'all the amazing opportunities that are in the pipeline', on-site work and arguably better projects to work on, not because they work the hardest but because they have been there the longest/ are seen as favourite. This is hugely demotivating for other employees who have worked incredibly hard over 1-3 years, yet are waiting to be acknowledged and/or appreciated - Non-competitive salaries: It is shocking to be on a £23K pay slip without the word 'junior' in your title in LONDON in this day and age, and still call the salaries at LDS competitive. I had been approached multiple times for roles by recruiters, one of which I decided to take, that made me realise LDS were paying 40% lower than other competing companies - Work/life balance: the work always comes first, regardless of how many times the senior management tried to convince us otherwise. The boundaries are very blurry when it comes to on-site work, weekend and evening shifts, and working bank holidays (including Christmas), resulting in many of the team members to suffer from burnout - Very cliquey at times: it is very hard to break the surface-level friendliness and get to know people if you haven't been part of the team for years and are not seen as one of 'the favourites'

Advice to Management

- Improve internal communication within teams - Make everyone that gets promoted to a manager role undertake a management training - Establish a better promotion scheme that allows LDS to actually BE competitive with their salaries and career growth

Pros

- There are some really lovely and welcoming people here. - You'll get to work with some of the biggest names in the industry. - The location of the office and hybrid working. It’s a graduate job. Get some experience. Meet some lovely people. Then move on.

Cons

- The pay is SO bad. You cannot live comfortably on a Little Dot salary. - Promotions are reviewed once a year at Christmas. You are expected to do the role you’re trying to progress to before your pay is reflected. This means you will work over your pay band for over a year. You will also be balancing the workload of your current role, AND then the responsibilities of the role above you. So if you’re trying to be promoted to a managerial position, you’ll begin managing team members without formal training. The promotion is not guaranteed, so be ready for disappointment. - Lad culture is alive and kicking. It is harder to thrive as a woman at Little Dot and to form the same working relationships with male managers than if you were another male trying to progress on the team. - Recognition and praise is hard to come by, especially if you are not a dominant/popular guy on the team. - You feel like a hamster on a wheel. You are mostly doing the same tasks every single day. It gets repetitive, stale, and you stop gaining any new skills. Plus, your workload is too big, and they keep on-boarding new projects. Most teams express being TIRED.