Thames Water Reviews

3.4

52% would recommend to a friend

(824 total reviews)
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Chris Weston

67% approve of CEO

33% positive business outlook

Thames Water has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 824 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Thames Water employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Energy, mining, utilities industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

824 reviews
1.0
5 Nov 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Close to town centre so it is easily accessible and you can park your car quiet easily or walk to work as the routes are easily accessible. Also there is plenty of choices in eating out at lunch as shops are close by

Cons

One of the most out dated companies you could work for, with an institution mentality where they employ everyone that is like themselves. A business that wherever you go, be that on the sites or in the offices it is filled by people and their relatives who somehow always seem to get the job. They all have a happy clappy monthly meeting where they congratulate each other about how well they are doing even when that means customer complaints are at their highest and some of the worst reports regarding leaks and floods. The CEO, the directors and heads of service and senior managers all walk around with a superiority attitude and that they are a big family. The funny thing is no matter how much they preach it is not a big family at all rather it tolerates very little and it is more dictatorial than a friendly place to work especially if you are innovative. All the outer showings would have you believe that they care about their staff or their customers they don't with people beavering away to reduce complaints. Pointless to complain as this company employs people like itself and they stay in the business until retirement age and have no real management skills except that they have just been constantly prompted due to having been in the business for so long. You would think that customer care was a priority and reducing the bills of the public was important. I can assure you it is not. Instead millions of pounds are wasted on recruiting agency project managers to work on projects because of the incompetent and laziness of managers who reside in this company. The irony is that whilst millions each year are wasted on recruiting agency project managers from particular agencies there is absolutely no regard for the public. The public are paying through the nose as directors head off in fancy hotels for a week to have a huddle to discuss issues which they then bring to the staff only to find that in 5 minutes the staff have given them the answer that took them a week to come up with over a week. Instead of hiring additional staff to fix and maintain the equipment and lowering costs to the customers this company instead focus on producing fancy maps and charts all in the name of project management to show to shareholders that they are being collaborative whilst wasting millions and millions and millions of pounds. The maintenance staff are paid such low salaries that no one wants to work with them whilst the CEO, directors, heads of service and senior managers all run around pretending to look busy costing the customer and at the end of the day the shareholders who ironically are mostly foreign investors. It is a company unlike any other where it is filled by almost 100% white men either just out of school or uni, middle aged white men and the retirement group. The offices are also filled by almost 100% white women, with the odd woman and man here and there who is not. Combine this with racist comments from a senior manager when talking about the IT company they use (Wipro) a company from the subcontinent (India). Of course the senior manager did it all in the name of banter but it was very clear what he meant. This was not the only incident I have heard of, rather similar banter can be heard in the office amongst staff when talking about certain people and continues because they are senior managers. Clearly believe that sticking a non white on a bus advert is going to make a difference; not sure how when everyone employed and even interviewed is white. The irony is some of the hardest and most helpful people I found were the Wipro staff.

1.0
15 May 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Probably decent for operations workers and their offices are in less expensive cities.

Cons

CEO laid off 600 people, some who had worked at the company their whole lives, and said anybody cut probably weren't really committed workers. They pay millions of pounds in bonuses, meanwhile. Slashed employee benefits extensively and offer smaller rewards while, again, paying out enormous bonuses to executives. Offer no structure for promotion and rare training opportunities. The most hopeless technological/digital operation I've ever seen. Customers will also know this. Terrible corporate social responsibility. A monopoly that's too big to fail which pollutes the environment while lobbying sympathetic politicians. Built a large PR campaign on mental health provision despite fostering a negative, stingy, bullying culture. Thames Water is a place where ambition dies and inadequacy rules.

1.0
21 Jul 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good benefits (if you manage to be employed for more than two years); in Clearwater court good canteen

Cons

Where do I start …. Since privatisation of the water industry in 1989, the company has been going downhill. Remember, this is an organisation who will get their guaranteed annual revenue whether they do the job or not … and this reflects through the whole company, which feels very much like the old public sector … The basic problem with TW is that there is a vacuum where leadership direction should be … and basically this is the failing of the company. With each change of leadership in the organisation comes new ideas, new ways of doing things, i.e. re-structure (with old people staying and new people leaving) and each management (as in any other organisation) looks at how do I maintain my salary for as long as I can without it costing me too much. What organisation would allow a re-structure of the business to take place 12 months after the previous one? What organisation would submit a five-year strategic plan (2020-2025) which would be rejected by the regulator with serious concerns over the content? What organisation can afford to have 45% of employees in managerial or business supporting functions and only 55% in operations? What organisation would rather hire and maintain leadership and senior employees who talk the talk, but not walk the walk? What organisation would not seriously look at their performance, analyse where the problems lay, identify priorities of solving the problems and create a plan on how to get on with the job? If you are looking for the answer to what organisation …. It is a company whose leadership does not have a strategic plan and forgets that their business is to produce clean water and treat wastewater. The lack of understanding of the business and the lack of direction is passed from executives onto senior managers, from senior managers onto managers and from managers onto the bottom line. This is then reflected in employee relations and employees’ desire to do the job … whether it is unfair bonus processes; shamble of an employee performance reviews; biased decision-making process; no objective ways of measuring performance or anything else … In summary, I would not recommend this job to any self-respected professional who want to do a good job of their work.

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Glassdoor has 910 Thames Water reviews submitted anonymously by Thames Water employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Thames Water is right for you.