I worked at Imprima for many years and went through many changes both in names and processes. It is a complete shame and disappointment that the company is in the position it is now. Poor decisions and investments led this company down a rabbit-hole to which they never recovered.
I will try and keep my comments brief, as there are so many “highlights” to choose from, but I hope you will sense the frustration from my end. Ultimately the poor management and company ethos destroyed the efforts of the hard-working few.
The company came into a lot of money from a big print deal and decided to sign an utterly appalling 10-year lease in the city. This was complete overkill for what the company needed, but the management wanted their own windowed-office in the city. Choosing image over anything else was a big factor into the downfall of the company.
The company brought in a so-called team of experts (a team of five people on stupidly high day-rates) to develop a new product, which never took off. In early stages every staff member that used the system stated how awful it was, yet management never listened. They pumped around £2 million into this for around 2 years before they realised what a waste of time this was. After around 6 months of development senior Sales people were giving it away as a freebie.
It was around this time that the poisoning trend of hiring useless people set in place. There were far too many staff in the company who showed up for a few hours and went home, disheartening the hard-working few.
All throughout this period the atmosphere outside of your own department/team was appalling. There was no respect for senior management as everyone knew they were hopeless and spent most of their time on corporate hospitality days. Sales were among the best treated in the company, they were rarely seen at their desk, and when they were they treated it like a playground. Women who did join the Sales team rarely lasted over a few months due to the lad-ish mentality of the Sales team who would bully them.
It was utterly frustrating to be constantly declined a pay-rise or essential training, but a Sales member who wants to go out for breakfast/lunch/dinner with a client had access to all the money they wanted, even though work was rarely returned from these ventures.
Money was continually wasted in this fashion until the holding company finally realised what a jolly-up path the company was now on. Certain members of senior management were paid a hefty pay-out to leave quietly. Shortly after they left, it was discovered that they had been wasting money so much so that the company pension pot hadn’t been topped up for a long time, leaving long-serving staff members at a complete loss. Let that sink in for a moment, the two leaders of the company, who were already on a very good wage, ruin the company and pension pot, then get paid a cheeky back-hander to leave quietly.
Sadly, the next era continued on the path of image over substance. The company decided to form what was known as the GLC, containing all the senior management across the company. This was the moment the level of pretentiousness stepped it up a gear. At a time again when the majority of staff are being refused training / pay rises, the GLC all fly out to Sweden for a nice weekend.
This stage of the company’s life is where things really got bizarre and in my opinion border-line illegal. People were fearing for their jobs and being made redundant, whilst friends of senior management were hired for made-up positions on a lovely wage.
This carried on for around a year before rumours started spreading around the company of more redundancies. Around this time money was being poured into the company, the office was completely re-vamped and various expensive marketing campaigns and company projects had taken place, so like myself most staff members assumed redundancies couldn’t happen, but we were wrong.
It was announced that the company were going into Administration, and that the company would split off (Financial Print and VDR’s). Obviously, the level of confusion at the prior spending escalated, with most staff members guessing that they were trying to pump as much money into the company as they knew this was the plan all along, and ultimately, they could write-off most of the money owed to key suppliers. One of the most heart-breaking things I witnessed during my time at this company is that one of the long-time serving members was made redundant , just short of his retirement - completely killing his after-work life plan. This is the kind of company this is, you are a number, unless you are in the inner-circle where you had an all-access pass to do what you want.
I left shortly after the companies split and can confirm that the ethos and management that killed the company are sadly still in place, this truly isn’t a company worth working for. There are no rewards/benefits/incentives for working hard, and absolutely zero-chance of career progression. It truly was a breath of fresh air to get out and reflect upon the madness that happened over the years.
