Pros
- Trust in Employee Workloads: Network N trusts its employees to manage workloads independently, emphasising a results driven approach with a focus on meeting deadlines. - Commitment to Development and Training: The company takes employee development and training seriously, allowing for the continuation of professional training, even though this was not offered in regular working hours regarding my professional training. Work related training was allowable in work time and encouraged. - Great Office Environment: The office boasts a modern and tech-savvy ambiance. This contributed to a positive working atmosphere in my experience. - Fair Salaries: Salaries are determined by a development ladder after joining. Overall, I believed people were mostly fairly paid (in some cases over paid). - Supportive Colleagues: My Direct colleagues at Network N were supportive and a collaborative group, consistently looking out for each other and encouraging personal and professional growth. -Benefits: The company offers a profit based bonus, a comprehensive health insurance, a good amount of holiday, takes mental health seriously, great paternity leave and healthy salaries. Positive Overall Experience: Despite differing reviews on GlassDoor I had a positive overall experience. I would take the other reviews with a pinch of salt. I would certainly recommend it as a place to work.
Cons
- Quiet Office Environment: The office is quiet office environment, which may not be suitable for everyone. A lot of people work from home often (myself included) or are remote. Don't expect a bustling office. Also, they have two hours a day where communicating is discouraged which does not help this. -Mixed Leadership: Directors and senior leadership exhibit a range of traits from disorganisation to pedantry. There are instances of blame-shifting and a lack of accountability for poor results. -Tick-Box Approach to Salaries: The structured development ladder for determining salaries is somewhat formulaic, lacking personalised and comprehensive discussions about career trajectories. -Hard decisions: The CEO and executive team, while well intentioned, make decisions that can lead to disagreements among employees which is expected in any workplace. However, meeting in the middle once in a while may pay off to appease the wider workforce (Specifically FH). -Career opportunities: Now this is specific in my experience and does not represent everyone's journey at Network N. However, I did get to the stage where I was unlikely to get more responsibility without looking elsewhere due to the smallish team I was in. This restricted my ambition. -Underplayed Benefits: Network N could improve by proactively highlighting its great benefits to employees. It's very easy for people to lose sight of these. Limited Responsiveness to HR Surveys: I'd advise management to be more attentive and responsive to feedback from HR surveys. These should not be an exercise to gather opinions for opinions sake. Take note, communicate what you can and can't do, and don't ignore them. - Hierarchy: All companies have a hierarchy so I'm not knocking the structure per say, but I think a flatter structure with senior leadership front facing and being about more in the office will go a long way to "us Vs them" feel. The Exec Chairman does this well.
