Catch22 Reviews

The rationale behind the low pay for Wellbeing Practitioners is that the job supposedly requires no formal qualifications. However, the company continues to hire overqualified individuals with degrees in fields such as mental health, criminology, forensics, psychology etc. Benefiting from their expertise while denying them fair compensation. Adding to this inequity, team leaders are not required to hold management qualifications or any managerial experience; merely one year as a wellbeing practitioner suffices. Yet, they receive a salary around £10,000 higher than that of wellbeing practitioners. The disparity in pay between wellbeing practitioners and team leaders is astonishing. This is especially concerning because most team leaders lack experience, have never held managerial positions, and possess inadequate knowledge of effective leadership. Their qualifications are questionable, and they are incompetent. I have not come accross a single team leader at Catch 22 whom I thought was suitable for the job or had any knowledge on how to successfully lead a team. Shameful. The company’s disregard for employee well-being is evident; their priority lies in meeting targets. Staff benefits are nominal, as evidenced by the expectation for employees to cover their own expenses for work-related social events meant to support wellbeing. I believe this has now been updated to a £5 monthly allowance which would barely get you a drink or a small meal in London. Prior to the £5 If you could not afford the staff outing, the response from management was simple: just skip it. The offered salary is unjustifiably low, rendering it nearly impossible to survive in London on such compensation. Opting for a job in the hospitality sector could potentially provide higher earnings. Furthermore, the salary does not reflect the substantial workload and elevated level of risk that wellbeing practitioners have to deal with. There’s a persistent push to take on additional responsibilities without any corresponding increase in salary/compensation, often justified as providing “valuable experience.” Additionally, the turnover rate among staff is notably elevated, surpassing that of any other organisation I have been part of. No one hangs around more than a year. It’s like a revolving door of new faces. Overall the worst organisation I have ever worked for. It is very clear that the values of Catch 22 lie in meeting targets so they continue receiving funding, while putting the well-being of their staff at risk. Shameful organisation.

Your experience with Catch22 depends entirely on the line manager and programme you're working on, as there is little to no noticeable management/regulation of managers' behaviour. Micromanaging was encouraged on some programmes, and the company will do anything to hit their KPIs including publicly shaming colleagues on team calls. The company ignores feedback (a colleague of mine who left, wrote an exit statement which detailed all of these things and nothing was done/it was never mentioned). I'm sure HR doesn't even look at them. There is a culture of 'this manager is friends with the director so nothing can change'. Colleagues have been reprimanded by management for speaking to the director, for example. When I left the organisation, I wasn't asked to complete a leaver's survey and I was told this was because 'I won't tell on them', when actually I would have been grateful for the opportunity to feed back to management. Expenses were withheld/discouraged in certain roles as 'it's a charity, we can't pay you back for your workplaces expenses as you'll be taking from a charity'. Please note that Catch22 is a social business, not a 'charity'. In other roles under different managers, this wasn't the case - this comes back to the lack of management/regulation of managers' behaviour.