Pros
Good camaraderie between colleagues and teams.
Cons
No training provided, other than mandatory or health and safety. Employee benefits are virtually non-existent (other than "discounted" vouchers such as 3% off a £100 gift card etc.). Managers/supervisors unable to effectively manage due to constant "firefighting". Absence is rife and all departments (including management) are chronically understaffed. Entire business is driven by cost and savings, there is absolutely no investment in people. Annual salary increase is significantly lower than rate of inflation (most recent rise was 1.75% after being led to believe it would be 2%). Communication is appalling between departments and between senior management and lower level managers/frontline staff, major decisions that have huge impacts on people's jobs/workloads/lives are made without any consultation with them. Very high "churn" rate, especially among managers as there is too much pressure and zero support or investment. This leads talented staff members to move on to bigger and better things, rather than staying to support and improve the business. There is a new focus/scheme almost every week from head office which means nothing to operational and frontline staff, meaning that nobody seems to know what tasks are priorities and eventually projects/bigger pieces of work are ignored in favour of firefighting/dealing with day-to-day issues and service delivery. Little HR support, a single manager supports the whole country (several sites and hundreds of staff). No confidentiality. Strictly private pieces of information become common knowledge almost immediately. Often staff members find out news affecting them from other staff members before being formally told. Almost no room for career development as there is no investment in staff or in training, so nobody ever improves or is given a real opportunity to prove themselves. Rate of pay is significantly lower than competitors, this is sometimes bolstered by "allowances" etc. to try and make up the difference but means that staff need to take on additional duties and responsibilities to justify their earnings. There is no such thing as employee engagement, the staff all have to fill out a questionnaire once a year and nothing is done about the results. Periodically there are "employee forums" set up, but these are then cancelled by senior management after a while for no specific reason.
