I couldn’t give 0 stars - Laboratory Technician Cells4Life Group Employee Review

The only pro to working at this company is the fact you earn money to live. There is absolutely nothing else, maybe a dominos for lunch once you’ve been forced to come in on Christmas Eve to harass customers with sales calls. The only benefit noted on c4l job adverts is that the parking is onsite and free…the bare minimum.

Awful environment in the office walking in every morning. Usually walking into dead silence. In the evenings if you left your desk at 18:00…which is when the work day ended; management wouldn’t look up from their computers or return a ‘goodbye’ as if they were enraged that we had the audacity to leave as per our contracted hours. If you talk for more than 2 minutes amongst yourselves you will be told to stop chatting similar to a school setting. You are NOT allowed to use the office microwave to heat up food (illegal). And you are not allowed to order takeaways to the office. Meaning during the winter you will have to have cold lunches or spend money on elsewhere. Because management doesn’t like the ‘smell’ but refuse to offer a proper kitchen like facility or staff room or even a seating area to have lunch. There is one sofa on the office floor which doesn’t allow for chatting as departments are trying to work nearby. Management refuse to spend money on cutlery for the office (3 forks between 15/20 people) and refuse to replace a broken shelf in the fridge for food storage (it broke approximately 2 years ago). Extremely uncomfortable temperature in the office ALL day from 9am-6pm. You are either blasted by freezing air con all summer long, or you’re boiling in the winter. You are also not allowed to open a single window in the office and there is no natural light. This makes for an extremely stuffy and dull working environment and you don’t breathe fresh air for 9 hours unless you go outside on lunch. The office toilets haven’t been renovated or redesigned for many decades. None of the toilets have windows in them and unfortunately many members of staff did not have basic toilet etiquette. Trying to ask management to purchase air freshener for the toilet was a difficult chore as it meant they would have to spend money. Extreme micromanagement from CEO, employing a sales team manager is pointless because they have no authority and are not trusted. This means leaving customers waiting with answers for discounts etc for a long period of time. No employee is trusted in the office and it’s made very clear. By lack of flexibility and no option to work from home, even though work load is monitored. You will have to use a half day of annual leave if you would like to simply have a 10 minute doctor’s appointment in the morning. Instead of allowing you to come in slightly later, they’d rather you use annual leave and miss a half day. This is the same for all appointments like the dentist etc - 0 flexibility. Sales team required to be on call once a week each, 24/7 for NO extra money or benefits like coming in later if you had a call that morning at 4am. Similar to working at the baby shows from London to Birmingham. Mandatory to work on weekends, no flexibility with coming in late on the Monday even if you’d driven down from Birmingham the night before and had worked 3 days in a row and broken down a large stand at the exhibition. Minimal investing into staff and no room for progression. No official training given for sales, it’s a matter of reading a script and reading it out. Again the refusal to spend money on staff means no official training or courses are provided. Sales team required to contact 100s of customers, every single day using an automatic caller. There was less than 24hrs between call attempts for each customer. Very sleazy sales harassment which is unusual for the product sold which is to do with newborn babies and healthcare. Closing down leads everyday as they shouted and complained about the amount of times they have been called. Constant emails to customers the marketing was also harassment, sometimes 5 emails in the space of 2 days. No social events planned outside of work. No Christmas party or meal provided aka no appreciation. You do not get a Christmas bonus or annual pay rise, even in line with inflation. They don’t even give you a Christmas card to say thanks for your hard work. Instead they just buy you a dominoes pizza on Christmas Eve when you’re forced to come in, and expect you to be back in the office working on December 27th. As you are not allowed to take off time around Christmas, meaning only the bank holidays were days off over Christmas and new year.

- Gave me a baseline of sales experience which I could then use to get a job that would value me more. - Generous commission structure.

- No investment in staff - zero professional development or training courses. - Horrendous micromanagement and mistrust from upper management - including CEO. - You are entitled to a ‘yearly pay review’ in your contract - however you won’t actually get given a payrise (not even with inflation), you will just be told that you are being paid competitively and that you aren’t due a payrise rise (I worked there for 3+ years and was never given a pay rise). - Zero respect or care for members of staff’s personal lives - if you have a dentist or GP appointment then you have to take annual leave rather than be allowed to leave the office for an hour. - Calling hundreds of expectant parents everyday, so be prepared to be accused of harassing people on a daily basis. Feels like a scammy call centre. - Cold and tense atmosphere in office where you will be snapped at for having a conversation. - No flexibility whatsoever to work from home, even if you have a medical or transport issue. - Only 3 days a year paid sickness. - You aren’t allowed to heat food up. - Zero benefits to the job. I was told that this is because it’s a ‘small business’ so they can’t provide all their staff with benefits. This is simply not true - they are a hugely profitable business who would rather that the pockets of senior management be overflowing rather than provide workplace perks. - In sales you’re expected to be on call 24/7 via an emergency phone and will be harassed if you miss a call. Work/life balance out the window. There’s also no grace with this phone. You answered a call at 4am and it kept you up for an hour? Better still be in the office at 9am. - Expected to work on a stand a few times a year at exhibitions and also expected to put in exhausting manual labour by breaking down the stand, rather than the company pay for staff to put the stand down. - Your time is not valued. - You are expected to work entirely around Christmas. - Very little / no appreciation for your hard work. If you make multiple sales and exceed targets, you’re just asked if you’re going to make anymore sales rather than be thanked or told well done. - Rude upper management and owner of the company speak to staff like they’re dirt and thoroughly beneath them. - Insane turnover both in office and laboratory.