Pros
The world of flexible workspace has huge potential and the volume of offices within the group means there is always one nearby. I would potentially use as a client (if it weren’t for the way clients are conned and treated) I could never recommend it as a workplace for anyone due to the toxic culture. There are some amazing people that work there but sadly many are trapped due to tenure. The VP of Operations for EMEA and COO for the UK are good people with great intentions and genuinely care but they have no opportunity to influence in the way they should due to the lack of autonomy and they are outnumbered by an archaic out of touch c-suite with no moral compass and terrible people skills so their attempts will sadly never come to fruition.
Cons
I don’t know where to start, several former employees have symptoms of PTSD following their time here. The culture is toxic and unbearable. Bullying culture - starting from the top, the culture’s foundation stems from intimidating employees until results are achieved. Nobody has a clue what they are doing and expect solutions with little instruction and berate people for trying to use their initiative when they fail to receive a clear brief. Due to the extreme cases of this at the very top, it filters down to all levels of the business. A “do as I say not as I do” approach and constant harassment to achieve constantly moving targets. Awful communication. No autonomy - nobody has autonomy excluding the CEO/Founder creative thinking is discouraged and “thinking outside the box” is not possible, every area of the business has a “help desk” of prescribed answers so you can’t even offer a client help/customer service. Everything goes through a help desk to be resolved. Those working in business centres have to deal with understandably disgruntled clients whilst not being able to do anything to resolve the issue. Blame culture - due to the lack of autonomy nobody has ownership of anything, therefore if something goes wrong, everyone scurries to blame someone else, for fear of the repercussion for making a mistake. This results in a completely ineffective workforce that hides issues and stabs colleagues in the back. It’s a real shame because great people have no choice but to behave this way for their own survival. High turnover - I have never witnessed a business with such high turnover, a few people have extremely long tenure (mainly head office) but the centre staff is a revolving door, good people leave very quickly due to the treatment they receive and those that have been there for a while stay out of fear for what other companies may be look - the c suite constantly preach that the grass isn’t always greener and these people unfortunately believe it, despite regularly breaking down in tears at work or battling anxiety and stress from their treatment at IWG. No pay reviews - There is no such thing as a pay review, they recently changed their pay structure because their reputation was so bad they needed to pay people more to attract them to the business and didn’t do anything to rectify the pay for existing employees, In most cases you have teams that you are managing earning more than you. If you ask for a review they tell you that you are ungrateful and should be appreciative to have a job in this market.