Why Idverde is the worst company I’ve ever worked for. - Skilled gardener idverde Employee Review

Idverde is a huge horticultural contractor who is responsible for maintaining amazing landscapes owned by The Royal Parks. This seems to be quite a prestigious project and the company which takes care of it should treat it as such. But no. Idverde is by far the worst company I have worked for in my life. This comes down to many factors. Firstly, idverde seem to have no interest in their employees well-being, satisfaction or happiness. The company seems to only strive to get work done as quickly as possible, sometimes without finishing a job, then swiftly moving onto the next task without care for the previous. This leads to mass dissatisfaction within the team making people feel the work they do is pointless. Secondly, the managerial style of idverde, within the park I worked at, was absolutely abysmal. The mangers seemed to want to have nothing to do with staff, the issues they raised, or the quality of their work. Zero effort or assistance is provided by any manager within the park I worked in, creating an even worse environment for the team. Most managers praise and support team members on whether they have done a good job or if there are places for the team to improve, however idverde managers seem to believe team members are there to get the work done quickly and not be proud of their accomplishments. Thirdly, the space for role development is non-existent. I began as an apprentice earning next to nothing and then finished my course after 3 years, graduating with a diploma from the Royal Parks. This led me to believe that a job offer may have been on the table due to my completion of the course, thus ready for the next step. However, due to the nature of idverde, they were very hesitant to employ someone from within, regardless of the level of knowledge and commitment that staff member may have had. Upon handing in my notice due to receiving an offer from elsewhere, I was then offered an interview for a role in a different park. This summed up the disregard for staff within the park who have the desire to step up into a more prominent role, and made me realise why I had applied elsewhere. Finally, jobs given to us by either managers or supervisors were sometimes completely wrong and not ‘best practice’. We were sometimes asked to grit roads when it was raining, which defeats the point of gritting anyway. We were once told to dig out shrubs in the middle of summer, to move them around 10 foot east of the current location they were in, causing them to shrivel and die. We regularly gravelled roads instead of finding a permanent solution for the job to create a road that last longer than 5 months. Overall, the working day consisted of doing work we had already done before at a low standard, as requested, then doing it all again 3 weeks later in the same manner. When questioning the method of the work and whether we should be doing it at a different time of year, my colleagues and I were completely disregarded and deemed useless compared to those in a ‘more important’ role. I wouldn’t recommend to anybody to work for idverde as they have made the last years of my work at the royal parks unfruitful and mediocre.