Oppressive, bad management - toxic culture top down
Pros
Industry exposure, extremely smart and hard-working colleagues
Cons
Demeaning verbal and written communication style from top management, no benefits, overworked workforce (continuous violation of WTR), borderline discriminatory narrative and exploitation of employees who are employed via a visa sponsorship, GDPR non-compliance (specifically personal data retention), withholding performance-based bonuses, no company sick pay, no perks, arbitrary performance reviews, internship exploitation, low salary (based on industry standards), elitism, favouritism. Oppressive, poor management. Partners do not listen to anyone. Staff have been telling them for the last 2 years how to improve, those who have tried to make positive changes had been bullied out of the company. Extremely high staff turnover which they justify by saying that they were either “not that smart” or “not very hard-working”. These employees have several master’s degrees, they are doctors and PhDs who work 60-70 hrs every week. Employees are expected to be available 24/7 and one of the Partners even emailed staff on boxing day to carry out tasks. There is a mandatory holiday period between Christmas and New Year’s, but the emails and messages did not stop. I was also regularly contacted on weekends to recruit for projects. Their communication style with staff members was disrespectful, erratic and condescending. Junior members of staff are made to feel inadequate and useless daily whilst senior members are blamed for all failures meanwhile, they had not been given the tools they had requested on so many occasions to deliver projects at a high standard. Yet, they still deliver. The company has been nominated for several awards in the last few years and have won. Staff has seen zero to very little reward for the hard work they had put into the Company's success. This has resulted in a (nearly) complete change of workforce in the last 2-3 years. The Partners are baffled as to why nobody wants to stay longer than 2 years (apart from those who are tied to them due to a visa sponsorship), the truth is that nobody feels appreciated. I read a lot of reviews on here and what most of them wrote, is sadly true. The positive ones either come from those who do not work for the Company on a regular basis, or they are fake. The Partners ask scholars and agency consultants and their own students to post positive reviews.
