Seems great from the outside but eventually you realise it is not
Pros
I work with some lovely people in the studio. Many who are very creative and good designers and provide good support to each other within their team. There are also a few people who are experienced architects and we used to have a few people who seemed like good project managers as well (although they all left). You often get to work on really exciting projects for interesting clients which is mostly why I still work here. Most people are quite friendly but it is very difficult to build relationships with the group leaders and the founder.
Cons
The group leaders always expect people to work long hours and are very poor at managing time and deadlines. I experienced that at other studios in the past but I feel Heatherwick are especially bad at managing time and people. There is someone who is supposed to manage resources on projects but she never gets it right and has really bad attitude when we suggest other options. The domains/departments vary and the ones I deal mostly with is probably comms, new business and Hr/people. Hr and finance are especially difficult to deal with (Hr used to be better about 3 years ago) and the head of finances is really rude and unprofessional. The communications and experience/worklpace teams are generally quite good. IT/digital used to be good but got much worse since the summer and never seem to solve problems quickly these days. Studio moves have been a IT disaster and disruptive to our work which put even more pressure on deadlines. There is a cancel culture in the studio that everyone fears but at the same time most people take part in. If you say anything that the founder, group leaders or studio 'caretakers' (directors) don't like or agree with you would be lucky to still have your job the next day. It is very childish when compared to other design studios and lacks the professionalism that I expected when I started nearly 3 years ago. The studio 'senior leadership team' seems to think they are amazing and that the studio is regarded as not just great at doing design but also seen as being professional by the outside world. However executive architects and contractors we work with don't see it that way which means the studio reputation is not as great as the leadership team assumes. This is one of the reasons they request that we all create fake users profiles (think catfish on social media) on websites like Dezeen and bdonline to go and rate our own projects and give all our work great ratings and reviews. They even asked some team members and project coordinators to leave good reviews on Glass door! I worry that the real reputation the studio has is the reason I have been struggling to leave and find a new job. From the outside the studio seemed like it was a great place to work. It is sad that is not the case because I feel there is great potential for it to be that.
