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Solutions Driven

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Solutions Driven Reviews

4.4

87% would recommend to a friend

(68 total reviews)
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Gavin Speirs

90% approve of CEO

85% positive business outlook

Solutions Driven has an employee rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, based on 68 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Solutions Driven employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Human resources and staffing industry (3.8 stars).

Reviews by job title

68 reviews
1.0
27 Aug 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

My team - minus the SMT

Cons

The CEO and COO only care about the bottom line and how much money they can squeeze out of any given situation, employee and client. Never worked somewhere that cared less about their staff. Staff turnover was insanely high - there wasn’t a month 1 year were someone in the office didn’t leave or was let go. If you don’t brown nose, work all the hours god sends, say yes to everything and agree with the Senior team consider yourself not someone who will last long. I felt bullied by the COO and I know I wasn’t the only one - multiple people have left because of him. He came across nice until you have to work in his team and then you see the real person! Felt pressured into working on Furlough - and inevitably was let go due to the whole company going “insolvent” more than likely because I refused to work over this period whilst many other people in the company “volunteered” Funny how they changed the name of the company a day before the business went into Insolvency ..... Moral in the office was terrible 90% of the time and they tried to hide this with throwing money on stupid stuff when they could have supported their staff better - they might have kept the big fancy office and good employees had they been a bit smarter with their decisions!! Senior members of the team couldn’t keep their mouth shut with gossip - they talked about people more than ladies who Lunch! The positive reviews on here are the brown nosers - no doubt the next review posted will be 5 stars, it’s almost laughable!

2.0
15 Aug 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The staff are generally very kind, personable and hardworking people who create a fun team environment. I made some great friendships in Solutions Driven and learned from many talented team members who were always willing to share knowledge and ideas. I am still in touch with many of these people today despite the fact that I'm no longer working for SD. This is the only reason why I am giving the company 2 stars on my review.

Cons

Despite the positive relationships and attitudes of staff members I find that the negatives of SD vastly outweigh the benefits. I find senior leadership to be weak and ineffective, led by a CEO who is unable to confront problems with both individual staff and overall business/fiscal concerns head-on. My experience with the CEO was that often he took the onus off of himself and instead placed responsibility to solely handle situations on myself as a junior employee when I really needed support. I do not believe there is a clear vision for the future of SD and I believe that when faced with challenging decisions and conversations, the easy way out is taken. I would rather work longer hours for a business that truly practises open-door policies, transparency, and honesty in all aspects of the business than have an early finish on a Friday. I feel that the sales team were often presented confusing messages as to where the business was fiscally positioned, most of the time I feel this was done to "save face" when the company was not doing so well financially. The environment is very gossipy, and not just typical water-cooler chat; senior leadership will discuss personal feelings about other employees with junior members of staff. It creates lots of tension and a feeling of constant uncertainty on where you stand with leaders in the organisation.

2.0
17 Oct 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Decent model for making commission, if you get high revenue roles or are favoured. Parking on site if you are a driver and the train station is a close walk with good links. The CEO is a genuinely nice guy and positive and balances out for the COO is rather intolerable at times, unliked and fosters a terrible environment in his team (hence the staff turnover). Some really nice people and good personal relationships with colleagues. Decent hours to begin with (but if mass reworks kick in and a manager overloads you that changes) but overall a real pro compared to other companies.

Cons

Given roles (or allocated by one-man management) so no real revenue control or a chance to overperform, and if you're not a yes sir man, you tend to get low-value roles that don't break you through high commission thresholds. Loads of tedious process to follow pre role, so you can act as a specialist in whatever market a role is in, and worse process whilst working a role, so minimal time to actually 'recruit. Feels like you are part of a production line due to COO methodology and going round in the same circles. Starting to feel boring already. Some of the roles you get have been on market for 6 months plus and for good reason. The technology promised is a mix of what other agencies use so how they expect different results is beyond anyone. Crazy high turnover due to micromanagement, elaborate process, some awful roles and worsening atmosphere. Cross-department relations are poor due to BD team being clueless about recruitment and chasing low hanging fruit roles. COO tries to manipulate you and thinks the staff are all naive. Anyone who leaves, which is often, is ridiculed in an email from our COO and been let go for 'poor performance' even though such colleagues talk and tell us why they are quitting beforehand. Pathetic! Salary appears good but hours add up quickly and the commission is weak and inconsistent with the high thresholds.

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Solutions Driven Response
7y
Thanks for taking the time to write your review. Firstly, thanks for the positive comments on me being a nice guy and positive – the bizarre thing is I learned everything I know from our COO (he is my dad after all 😊). Also, thanks for the positive parking comments – I did pick the office location, so will take credit for that one! It’s a shame you feel as you do, especially since it says you are a current employee. Also, when I read all the other recent reviews it seems your views are very different to the other views, which I find strange. Given you said I am a nice guy and positive it may have been better coming to chat to me? Rather than your “ghost” reply? In reviewing your comments, I agree we do have a good commission model – which pays out bonus for high outputs and efficient delivery. Yes, clearly high revenue roles impact that however we have no favouritism for who gets higher value roles other than protecting our customers and allocating people who have experience of such roles as well as demonstrable experience in filling roles right first time. I would presume the latter impacted you, given you reference to reworks and meaning the role you were working on wasn’t filled right first time. You later mention that the commission structure is weak after saying it is decent – not sure where to go with that. Your comments on loads of tedious processes – it’s a balance I guess and one we’re continuing to look at as we introduce new systems – however, I’m not sure many recruitment companies could say they fill over 90% roles right first time and I don’t think the rigour of our “tedious” process supports this. I’m guessing you weren’t at our team meeting a month ago when we shared our new value proposition? Our focus as a business is now on “sourcing business-critical hires globally” – this usually means difficult to fill roles, roles that have been open for longer than norm and roles that demand a very capable recruitment partner to deliver. Your comments on a BD team who are clueless, ghost roles, been open for 6 months – honestly it sounds like you aren’t feeling as good about your recruitment capability as we would like existing employees to feel – I’d welcome the chance to address and support this. The point on when people leave they are ridiculed – I don’t see any factual examples of this – in fact, I would say as soon as someone does leave (either via their own choice or the companies) the norm is the team are taken in right away and made aware of this – we are open on the reason, either new job, performance, behaviours or felt it was time for a change. I actually thought we were pretty good in this communication process and would have had it as a pro instead of a con, but hey it’s all opinions at the end of the day. I didn’t reply to your points on worsening atmosphere, awful roles, micromanagement and poor cross department relationships as I honestly don’t agree with them and I guess I am allowed my opinion too. In summary, we will certainly take learnings from your comments – if you are a current employee as you mention, please take the time and courage to come and speak with me direct. Thanks again for your feedback. Gavin.
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Glassdoor has 70 Solutions Driven reviews submitted anonymously by Solutions Driven employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Solutions Driven is right for you.