Culina Group Reviews

Shift pattern. The 4 on/4 off rotating day/night shift pattern messes with your body's biological rhythms and makes you fatigued and run down. The 4 days off sounds nice, eh? Trust me, you'll need them, you are on your feet 10 and a half hours a day/night doing physical work. The first nightshift is always horrible. You're lifting boxes at 4am and your body is screaming for sleep. And when you come off nights the first day off is basically a write-off because you either need to sleep, or stay awake feeling wretched to try and reset your body back into dayshift mode again, which takes a few days during which you never feel 100%. Good luck sleeping well during the day in a hot summer. I've seen this shift pattern take its toll on people's relationships at home. Work culture for pickers. Extremely busy and target-oriented. You are a robot not a person. The team leaders/shift manager are watching you all the time. Just picking the expected amount is frowned upon, and the ones who break their backs exceeding their targets become the golden boys. There's no bonus for exceeding targets, so fast workers basically get exploited by the team leaders/manager. However, camaraderie between pickers is generally good. The company is not lenient on sickness or lateness at all. No chance in hell of getting unionised. Health and safety. Management are happy to turn a blind eye to unsafe practices to get the orders out of the door. I personally witnessed managers being raised up on a pallet by a forklift to check stock on the higher racks. If all the forklift drivers stuck to the safety rules the warehouse wouldn't be able to meet its targets. Work/life balance. Not much. The 12 hour shifts only give you about 2/3 hours outside work to do anything, including cooking and eating your dinner, and you're usually knackered anyway. Yeah you get 4 days off which can be useful sometimes, especially if you have young kids, but some of that will be taken with overtime. And you'll be working at least one day of the weekend for 5 weeks out of 7. Most of the time you'll be at work when your mates are off, or stuck at home watching Loose Women when everyone else is at work. Management have no respect for your wellbeing at all. You will be guilt-tripped into overtime. If you ring in sick they will sometimes try to convince you to come in anyway "just to see how it goes". Career prospects. The pathway to management is narrow and the journey can be slow. You can work your way up, I've seen it. If you brown-nose the manager, play golf/become drinking buddies with them you will become team leader easily. But there is rarely a vacancy for management. Shift managers tend to stay in their positions for quite a while, because as management jobs go they're quite cushy. If you're breaking your back on the shop floor hoping for a promotion you could be waiting a long time unless you're good at kissing posterior. Occasionally admin jobs become available, and that's your best chance to get off the shop floor if you have half a brain. Environment. It's a refrigerated warehouse. You are given adequate clothing. However, there's no escaping the cold. You are literally working inside a gigantic fridge.

Dangerous MHE Driving by staff. Reported and nothing gets done. Reach drivers travelling down Isles and turning with pallets in the air, sometimes over the heads of pickers. Weekend is worse for some reason and night shift is a death trap. No counterbalance driver wears the seat belt and they often jump off the truck while it's still moving. The Counterbalance drivers race around the warehouse with pallets in the air. Counterbalance drivers pushing 2,3 sometimes 4 stacks of pallets along the floor down the length of the warehouse on night shifts. Reach and counterbalance drivers drive up close to the lable printers and lean out the truck to get labels. A number of drivers have accidentally pressed the drive pedal and hit the printer while leaning out the cab, almost crunching themselves. Drivers smash into barriers, computer desks, racking and pallets. Nothing gets done and damages not repaired. Dangerous drivers are never challenged, in fact they encourage reckless driving as they can then exceed the given targets resulting in less divers needed which in turn means more pickers. Culina logistics Mk would rather 1 person drive recklessly and keep up with demand rather than have 2 drivers operating in a safe manner as it affects the KPI but is creating a dangerous working environment. WAGES... Wide variety of wages within Mk site and across the Culina group. There is a wide variety of salarys for doing the same job, working same hours and having same licences. Long term staff seem to be the worst effected as new starters are on more money due to banked hours Clause. Lenghth of service, company knowledge and Loyalty does not pay at Culina Logistics. Culina employees at other depo are paid considerately more money even tho cost of living in MK is so high. Staff going to other sites on different wages. I get offered time and half wage whilst others are offered double pay. Banked hours contracts. Some people have to bank hours when voluume is low while others on the same contract don't. = favouritism. The dangerous drivers are rewarded by always being on the trucks while slightly slower but safer divers are made to always pick and new drivers hardly ever get a chance to gain experience or are never used at all, so gain a licence for no reason at all. Other staff members are signing the training documents / declarations while the actual trainers are usually working on a truck in the warehouse. Unqualified staff producing all MHE training pack, test papers and theory questions. pick rate bullying. Picking orders are not random. Some are allocated good orders so they can achieve the pick rate easily and still stand around chatting half the day/night either in the office There are a few drivers who blast music out from there phones whilst working. This is pickers using PPT's, reach, counterbalance and VNA truck drivers. Talked down to in a rude and condescending manner. On Induction, we are told we are not allowed to wear hoodie. Loads of people do because it hides their headphones. This includes the team leaders and step up team leaders. Across all shifts, there is always someone who finds it amusing to use the tanoy system to make rude and derogatory comments, stupid animal noises and aggressive announcements to warehouse staff. There is no progression at all if your face does not fit.