CLS Group Reviews

People are employed for their expertise but are not allowed to use their initiative. There are some extremely bad bullies. It is very targeted and nasty. This is by managers and people that are their 'side kicks' that are grossly incompetent but will not admit to their inadequacies (but rather put them in a 'management' role. They are always looking for scapegoats to shift the blame, even if the person is very professional and does a far superior job than them. There is no escalation process to deal with managers that are bullies. Some of the managers based in the US treat their team members in London like slaves: they dictate, don't listen, and don't inform them what is happening. They do not plan things properly, everything is a reaction, they don't listen and then when it goes wrong and try to shift the blame. They treat seasoned professionals as if they are junior apprentices, undermining them and insulting their intelligence. The way some US managers speak is dogmatic, controlling and nasty with zero courtesy. The do not support their team members, ignore emails then demand things to be delivered when they click their fingers (despite it being delivered already (or they had forgotten they'd asked somebody else to do also) but they missed it or it is something they were provide support/responses on). Some managers and their teams do not treat their staff with any respect. They do not acknowledge all the great work but instead become extremely vindictive if a professional raises a concern to them as a risk about operational practices and standards. Instead they try to make your life unbearable so that you leave and try hard to find something about you or your work to criticize, and withhold privileges that is common to other team members as revenge.

By any sensible metric there would be a warning flag up, due to the sheer number of people leaving, senior staff turnover and moral, but oversight seems to be poor and no-one seems to be able to challenge for risk of being black marked. The HR department in particular has a direct, negative and divisive influence on the CEO, the culture and increasingly the operation of the business. It is grotesquely bloated and constantly trying to wag the dog, despite having no strategic wherewithal. There are dozens of HR people for an entire business of only 300 or so and with no concept of the real requirements of the business, just telling the leadership what they want to hear and trying to create more non-critical work to keep itself employed. Staff are constantly being told of the need to ‘engage', while repeat staff surveys achieve nothing when the feedback is either manipulated to make the case for HR spending more, or even worse, ignored entirely. Very demoralising and counterproductive.