The worst hospitality company you will work for
Pros
People in venues are lovely, and some area managers are friendly.
Cons
Operations: the most soulless money-hungry corporate team you will ever meet who don't treat anyone like a real person (what happened to hospitality?) or have any care for any matter that isn't a bonus they can pay themselves. They will cut costs and make operating their venues as difficult as possible, while somehow believing the idea that they are a "upmarket" or "premium" competitive socialising brand (how one can be premium when paying staff minimum wage? I'm not sure). A pay rise is more difficult to get than parting the red sea and forget anything regarding a bonus as they will make many false promises during your hiring process Head office (all the way from people directors to operations managers and directors and area managers) will speak to you like absolute dirt, there is no way to understate the levels to which they will belittle you and make you feel constantly on edge even on your days off. They also have a habit of constantly changing goal posts for KPI's, meaning the measures by which your venue was running well one week are meaningless the next and they seem to take joy in making you feel like you're terrible at your job. Facilities: the department is essentially on ice for most of the year as operations will not sign off any expenses in order to cut costs meaning that venues will be begging for basic needs such as extractor fans (legally required) and air conditioning and the maintenance team will not be given the go-ahead by operations to purchase or repair anything, so be prepared to run a broken venue. Marketing: a confused mess of a department that are "tongue in cheek" which essentially translates to inappropriate and borderline vulgar, which is especially odd again for a company obsessed with being premium Bookings and sales: Because of operations deciding that the bottom line matters more than anything else, the bookings team are understaffed and also given the cheapest software available, which double books, double charges and also charges without assigning products to customers, meaning if you work in-venue expect to apologise and be abused by customers for issues you did not cause (your area manager will still somehow blame this on you). Regional/Area managers: although given a lot of flak from head office (over absolutely nothing most of the time), there is no justification for the way area managers treat their venues. The company obsession with KPIs that they choose at random is more apparent than ever when speaking to your area manager. They will punish you as a venue for not doing things exactly the way they personally like and will force you to cut so much labour you'll be operating on a skeleton crew on a payday Saturday, and then be shocked when revenue is down and complaints are up. Again I have to state the way that they will speak to you is disgusting, belittling, and done purposefully by all the area managers to deliberately instil a culture of fear and toxicity. Essentially, the operations team and area managers seem to think that this job requires the stress experienced by nurses and doctors working in A&E, when in reality they run a bowling company which is no more premium or upmarket than any other, and really not that important.