Pros
I was a client of Lighthouse and my mentor Shaun Cooper (who has since become a very close and trusted friend) for about 16 months before I joined the company outright and right from the start everyone here has always placed a lot of caring attention on me as a person; my goals and my challenges and supporting me as much as possible through every step of my journey. This has been done through an ongoing culture of mentorship where every member has access to guidance and support with every and any challenge. I have never felt like a mere commodity, replaceable cog or disposable asset that I have in most other companies I’ve worked in. There is a genuine care between everyone here that comes from a philosophy of always putting people and relationships first that isn’t just spoken about, it’s actually lived. The Chairman Paul Waugh has been such a great positive influence and guide in my life and through him I’ve really come to learn and appreciate here just how much people truly are the driving force and most valuable part of any business, as they are in any family or group. I know that is often talked about a lot by other people and organisations too, but very rarely have I found it genuinely practiced and applied with integrity and accountability in the way I have found it to be here. When tested, the support has always extended beyond expectations too. A personal example for me being a particularly painful relationship breakup I went through several years ago, something most companies would see as a private matter to be left at the door when starting work. Not at Lighthouse. I was counselled and supported throughout and even helped to grow through that as a valued member of the team where my work and confidence actually increased as a result. My confidence and leadership ability has also soared here under the mentoring and the support within Lighthouse. For instance, on joining I was still very fearful of public speaking, presenting and leadership or being in the spotlight in general. Through mentoring in these areas and consistent support however, I’ve overcome this far more than I ever expected to, where I now regularly lead teams and meetings and was recently invited into a senior position within the company as well, as a fruit of that and my growing leadership ability. Because of these things and the careful selection that Lighthouse go through in their recruitment, the environment and the people here I have found to be first class. There is a feeling of family and togetherness along with a very strong, highly professional level of focus and intensity towards excellence and serving those we work with inside and outside the organisation in the best way possible. The quality of support I received as a client and the relationships I built then is one of the reasons I wanted to join the company.
Cons
While Lighthouse holds itself and everyone here to high standards, values and principles, we are all far from perfect and we fall short of those standards all the time. Stepping up to this from my previous employment was a real challenge that stretched me a lot in my early days, but I also look back and realise that I didn’t have the best attitude towards that either and could have coped better than I did. What matters here is the desire to learn and improve from mistakes and shortcomings and use that to do better the next time, which in itself is not a downside at all, but it is there because of - and even the Chairman and Directors themselves would admit this openly - how much they have gotten plenty of things wrong and continue to do so. This definitely isn’t the kind of place to come and be a passenger or seek to get away with the minimum you can in order to coast along for the least amount of work you can get away with. Everyone here is expected to do and give the best they can for their level of ability. It’s about effort and commitment and your attitude, as long as that is healthy you will be helped and supported to improve your skills and competency to thrive. Looking back, I was probably thrown more in the deep end than I was ready for at the beginning but the company was still learning and in a deep research and development phase at the time, which I was aware of, and that’s since been much improved upon and learned from for new members joining in a much more effective and graduated empathic way.