Pros
1. Flexible working as long as you agree it up front with your line manager. 2. Benefits are good, 4 x life cover, private health care (contribution based on your grade), 8% OSB pension contribution + 5% your contribution, bonus (increases with your grade), childcare vouchers, perk box. 3. Company is growing its deposits and lending books well, great to be a shareholder. 4. Fantastic training team, really motivational. 5. Quarterly employee scheme, winner receivers £500 in vouchers & 2 x runners up receive £250 in vouchers (word of caution though, it’s become a free for all, over 100+ colleagues are nominated every quarter), it’s lost its value. 6. Christmas shopping day, nice touch.
Cons
1. Poor culture, employee engagement is lacking, despite an annual survey mangers don’t listen to colleagues feedback to make improvements. 2. Unless you’re in the money making teams don’t expect to receive a 1st class experience, cannot count the number of times a front of house member of staff would go to an awards dinner night before a back of house member of staff was even invited to an event. 3. Some senior managers behaviours can be on the boarder line of bullying. 4. HR department was great but really gone down hill, never admit when they’re in the wrong & make too many mistakes, seems the company is more important than the individuals. 5. IT systems crash on a daily basis, makes the day to day job extremely difficult. 6. Company is spread across too many sites, 3 different ones in Chatham alone, makes communication difficult and leads to failures. 7. Be careful of the phrase if it’s in your contract “you may work additional hours as necessary for the proper performance of your duties”. Workloads are not properly allocated so doing extra hours becomes the norm not the exception.