BSI Group Reviews

Cons

There really aren’t many bad things. Yes there are bits that need sorting and improvement (where isn’t there?) but there seems a desire for this to happen from everyone.

Cons

Not too much to say other than with rapid growth the organisation and it's infrastructure needs to adapt quickly to multiple changes to match the speed of growth

Cons

Illogical management structure
Targets seemingly pulled from thin air
Pay is at the lower end of the salary bracket
'One BSI' philosophy is just phrase and not practiced across the company
No upward promotion structure whatsoever
Reward initiative and listen to our ideas!

Cons

A lengthy training process that could be condensed

Cons

For the great pay be prepared to sacrifice your overall well-being.

An insane culture of bullying runs rampant, especially within the group marketing department.

A great deal of "old heads" are at the helm and have no clue how things work or how they actually get done.

Pathetic mean girls, sociopaths and narcissists run these halls! If you don't enjoy gossiping, backbiting or other bullying tactics, you can't sit with them. Mind you, any person with self-respect and a life will be glad for the distance.

Too much work put on the hardworking. Good people leave after only a few months.

Good managers are severely put upon by the "Boys Club" that is senior management.

Cons

Despite being central to the delivery of its assurance services, BSI does not make the role of Client Manages easy. Rather, BSI places many hoops and hurdles in the way, which makes the job more difficult than it needs to be. In my experience, BSI’s strapline of “making excellence a habit” is not borne out by BSI’s own working practices.

BSI expects full-time Client Managers to conduct client-visits on 5 days one week and 4-days the next week, with an allowance of one day per fortnight for admin duties. That one day is meant to provide enough time for planning all the assessment visits for the coming fortnight, including researching clients, checking the outcomes from previous assessments, reviewing upcoming visit plans, and checking locations and travelling times. Also, that allowance of one day per fortnight is meant to be enough to cover other tasks such as completing expenses claims, answering e-mails, and dealing with any car-related matters.

I have found BSI’s working practices and IT systems to be unwieldy and unnecessarily complex. In particular, Client Managers are required to use the eReport system which is time-consuming and fiddly to use, especially on the small screen of a laptop. The strain of using eReport is exacerbated by the time pressures placed on Client Managers to complete reports on the day of each visit, whether at the client’s premises or at home in the evening. Meanwhile, Client Managers’ diaries and the allocation of jobs is managed through the clumsy Point Global system.

In theory, BSI has a policy that Client Managers are consulted before being assigned to jobs which exceed some pre-set travelling limit. However, I have never been consulted, despite regularly being assigned to client-visits with one-way journeys of 2 hours or more. Rather, I have often felt like a pawn who is at the disposal of the regional manager and central planning team.

Client Managers are required to maintain timesheets to record time spent on client-facing work and travelling. In practice, Client Managers often do not record the full time needed to prepare for assessments and populate the eReport system, as doing so would result in clients being charged extra and Client Managers being questioned. Also, I have experienced Client Managers being challenged for recording high levels of travelling time. Based on guidance from regional managers, leaving home early to build in contingency for heavy traffic and, thereby, arriving early at clients’ premises is a personal choice. Time spent sitting in the car waiting to enter a client’s premises is treated as the Client Manager’s personal time. Alternatively, the Client Manager is expected to use this time to plan for upcoming assessments or complete admin tasks (using a laptop in a car is not easy or comfortable).

BSI requires new Client Managers to complete a considerable amount of training, including a range of on-line modules and tests. However, a significant amount of the training materials is out of date and fails to cover important practical points which a Client Manager needs to know. Meanwhile, I have found locating basic information very difficult using BSI’s intranet and associated systems. Also, new Client Managers are all put through the same standard training regime, irrespective of previous experience or qualifications.

Client Managers report into a regional manager. Perhaps my experience is particularly unfortunate, but I have never been able to gain appropriate guidance or support from the regional manager. Based on working at various companies, management at BSI is probably the worst that I have ever encountered, in terms of operational ability and people-management skills.

As well as “making excellence a habit”, BSI claims “customer first” as an underlying tenet of the business. However, as already indicted, delivering quality services to clients is made difficult by BSI’s processes and practices. Also, I have seen clients being treated with an offhand disregard, with changes being made to assessment dates which had been agreed with clients months in advance, in order to meet the regional manager's own agenda. I have also come across some very unhelp central staff who seem to lack a basic understanding or care about the customer’s perspective. Rather than putting customers first, BSI is one of the least customer-focused companies which I have come across.

Regrettably, BSI does not appear interested in receiving honest feedback about failings within BSI’s frameworks and systems. From my own and others’ experience, any attempt by Client Managers to raise issues has resulted in individuals being labelled as negative or difficult.

While working as a Client Manager, obtaining another job is not easy. The practice of filling Client Managers’ diaries with assessment-visits and allowing only one day a fortnight for admin duties means that attending job interviews is virtually impossible to arrange. As a result, Client Managers can become trapped.

BSI expects Client Managers to express pride in working for the company. Indeed, some Client Managers think highly of the job and the benefits delivered to clients. Personally, my feelings are more akin to embarrassment.

Cons

Not all teams in the company feel as valued. On-going change in priorities creates difficult and unreasonable expectations from some of senior management.

Cons

It is sad that in recent years, the toxic management techniques employed by middle management have created a stressful work environment to the point where a significant number of staff have been forced to either step down, or leave the company.

Senior management appear to take little or no interest in the well being of staff.

Cons

Sales:
Do you enjoy working with narcissistic sycophants?
Do you like having no say AT ALL in how you work?
Do you like being micromanaged?
Do you enjoy having to tell your boss EVERY. SINGLE. THING, ALL. THE. TIME?
Do you enjoy having no autonomy in your role?
Do you think that senior management should call members of your team liars, causing them to be so demotivated/anxious that they leave?
Do you enjoy working with senior managers who believe it’s acceptable to threaten to sack your whole team (for something relatively minor)?
Do you like working with senior managers who have read a management book from the 20’s but thinks it’s too progressive?
How about working with managers who know the term “situational leadership” and bandy it around regularly, but laughably don’t demonstrate it in ANY way?
What about working with managers whose only management style could be classed as Victorian School Mistress (looking after 3 year olds) and who shouldn’t be let anywhere near humans beings? It’s possible that they might actually be poorly programmed robots... maybe using technology from a backward, people-hating planet in a distant universe?
Do you enjoy being stabbed in the back by senior managers because THAT’S the actual culture rather than what you might be force fed in terms of the company values?

If you can say yes to these questions then BSI is definitely the place for you!

Cons

No obvious career progression choices
Terrible HR service