Culture of Paranoia - Production Manager Cision Employee Review

1.0
14 Nov 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Shift patter - week on, week off, night shift.

Cons

When I started working at the company, it was a privately owned concern called Durrants. The running of the company was fairly casual but you felt you were recognised for hard work and was rewarded accordingly. Over the years the company was taken over by increasingly larger entities. As Venture Capital came in, so did more and more layers of middle management, all more concerned with making themselves look good or justifying their positions rather than worrying about the actual running of the business. The beginning of the end for UK production began with the acquisition by Cision. The company made no secret of their desire to automate and outsource as much of our department's work as possible and this led to a climate of worry and fear in the office. When a sudden departure of the UK senior management led to the arrival of a US CEO in charge of the UK and Europe, we knew the writing was on the wall. UK Production was all but ignored in the new boss's communications. He was obviously brought in to close the UK's operations, but was two-faced in his approach to this, and eventually, proved to be incompetent in what must be one of the longest, drawn out, redundancy processes in history. As we carried on coming into work for around two years, knowing that we were helping to end our own jobs, a climate of fear and worry was all that abound in the near-empty building at Canary Wharf. The quality of the product which had been one of the notable aspects of the company was now laughable in the errors made by the teams in India and S Africa who were taking over chunks of the production work gradually. It was a sad end to a decent period and a good job, with many great people.

Explore other reviews about Cision

5.0
30 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good environment and people, great benefits, interesting work.

Cons

Anyone working night shift will see challenges related to that, but the work is interesting.

2.0
3 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Decent work life balance, some good teammates who care about each other and the company makes payroll on time (for most people)

Cons

The executives can’t stand each other and can’t make decisions, so the rest of us were left running in circles. Revenue has declined every year and it keeps getting worse. We had at least 4 layoffs a year and they never communicate them — one day your coworkers just don’t show up. Everyone is constantly looking over their shoulder. The best people have already left because they see the writing on the wall. The products aren’t good and aren’t getting better. They keep talking about Nexus but no one knows what it means or who even wants it. Numbers change depending on who’s presenting them and why. There’s no consistent story on targets internally, which makes it impossible to plan or prioritize anything. PE ownership and puppets in the C Suite meant that every decision gets filtered through “what does this look like for the exit” rather than what’s actually good for the business or the people in it. Compensation hasn’t kept up, especially after layoffs when your workload doubles and nothing changes in your paycheck. No real investment in development either. Bottom line: you’re a headcount, not a person. And they manage by spreadsheet not logic.

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