The place where passion & enthusiasm goes to die.. - Project Buyer Dematic Employee Review

Poor culture of “we’ve always done it this way” with no appetite within the business to drive the required changes that are needed for a multinational organisation that has grown rapidly in recent years. Bad conduct, bullying and aggressive behaviour is accepted and rewarded by management if it achieves results and there is a underlying current of unethical behaviour “just to get the job done”. Individual team morale varies from department to department with extreme range due to inconsistencies in how resources and company policies are applied to different teams - such as flexibly of working hours, working from home and critically training budgets to allow individuals to progress and grow. Although it can be accepted that heads of department will naturally have different management styles, the inconsistency in application of key resources for employees which enables employees to feel valued and nourished in their career development largely fails in key areas. As a result, it leaves a feeling that if you’re not for example a engineer or a project manager within this organisation, you’re not valued and are very visibly treated as a third class citizen and your professional development is at a disadvantage. The wellbeing of employees is not cared for, with initiatives of mental health and half hearted measures to drive improvement in morale and employee support and well being purely for show. Management and HR executives are largely unwilling and incapable of delivering improvements, showing empathy or genuine care for those they have a responsibility towards to support. Witnessing first hand a colleague breakdown in a meeting due to burnout and stress, is not a acceptable environment. Salary, progression & development are dirty words. Conversations on salary between employees are discouraged, and for good reason due to often unfair and unjustified variation in salary figures routinely between those with the same title, qualifications and experience. There is no clearly defined salary banding, or way to achieve a salary in line with the market average as your career progresses with the organisation and your experience and qualifications grow. As a result, salary increases are rare and minimal in line with the annual minimum % increase. Regardless of experience or qualifications, if you can pee standing up without disaster you can expect to be paid around 10k more annually than those who have to take a seat if you are taking on a role with this organisation. Progression is often not possible, due to high attrition where if there are roles to move to which are suitable, it is often “blocked” due to a inability to back fill the role. In addition, those who are able to move to other roles within the business often have to wait extended periods if time as new candidates are struggled to be found. Development opportunities are minimal as there is no imbedded culture of excellence or innovation, and best industry practice doesn’t appear to apply. The focus is on getting the project done, by any means necessary, by passing all usual continuous improvement and lessons learned methodologies you would expect. Professional development is based on the Dematic standard, not industry best practices. Urgency has lost all meaning... The “get it done mentality” to meet deadlines is often at the expense of long term improvement, cutting costs and corners to facilitate demand urgency created due to poor internal procedures, processes and planning. Everything within the organisation is “urgent” and no one appears concerned that this is a sign of deeper failings at every level. Due to this urgency, the corners which are cut are often at the expense of ethical boundaries, due diligence and health and safety standards. While the market continues to grow, Dematic will continue to reap the rewards. However, the internal infrastructure is not there to support its demand and recent growth; until profits reduce or the serious impacts of the corner cutting and poor culture are felt, senior leadership do have the incentive to apply the top down drive in change required.