Toxic Work Environment and Deceptive Practices
Pros
Colleagues are lovely and incredibly friendly. You can also pick which shifts you want to work to an extent. That’s about it to be honest
Cons
Firstly, I’d like to start by acknowledging and concurring with all the points raised in the previous Glassdoor review. Everything mentioned there is indeed accurate, so there’s no need for me to reiterate them. However, unfortunately all the “Pros” mentioned no longer exist apart from BUPA healthcare. It was unfair of them to hire me in the first place. There is absolutely nothing to do and I have had full weeks where I have had to come in and sit down from 9-5pm as a seat warmer. I really wish this was an exaggeration. I was not trained AT ALL and literally hired as a glorified on-site seat warmer. They should have promoted internally rather than recruiting externally. As a HCPC registered professional you will leave this place dumb, every day that you are here you are losing competency. Working here was the worst career decision I have ever made. This is by far the worst place I’ve ever worked at in my life, and I’ve had my fair share of “bad” working environments. Working here is how I imagine it would have felt like to work at Theranos. There is an extremely high staff turnover and now I can better understand the reasons behind this. Management are smooth talkers and know how to charm people and gaslight staff that things are going well when they are not. There is a severe lack of transparency. The level of manipulation psychological warfare used against the lab team is insane and I could have never even imagined anything like this. I'm not surprised that they lost their IBMS training approval, and I wholeheartedly believe that they should never be allowed to train anyone. They make up their own rules and definitely have a tendency to look down on people in the lab, especially the lab technicians, though even lab managers aren’t spared. If you don’t conform to their expectations and play by their rules, they’ll do whatever it takes to push you out. Regrettably, my time there left me with severe workplace trauma, anxiety and depression that I need to recover from. It’s astounding that merely asking a question as a brand new team member results in being questioned about your competence which is insulting. You are not allowed to ask questions, you should know everything. (Note to management: No matter someones prior experience, it can never be assumed that just because something was done one way elsewhere, that it will be done the same way at Salient. Particularly when the clinical implications may be significant. You must work on your tone and stop being so condescending and patronising particularly when people are willing to learn). Again, no training was provided from the day I began to the day I left. When you try and speak directly to management or share how you feel, this a huge no-no. You are told that you should respect the “line of communication” and should go through your line manager rather than speaking directly with management. You are expected to know this with no proper induction, onboarding or training. This does not exist anywhere else and gives rise to hearsay and miscommunication. You are not allowed to write emails because this is too “formal” which is misinterpreted as “aggressive”. All of this is deliberate so that there is no paper trail or traceability for their lies and deceit and by going through a middle-man they have plausible deniability as they never say anything directly to you. Honestly,, I couldn’t get out of there sooner. Furthermore, the job advertisement boasts about various perks, but upon arrival, you quickly realize that these perks are practically non-existent, with the exception of BUPA medical insurance. Inquiring about these missing benefits leads to the explanation that the NHS doesn’t offer perks, and therefore there is no obligation for them to provide any. Essentially, I was informed that I should consider anything offered as a privilege in itself. To add to this, there was mention of free gym membership, but when I asked to sign up, it turned out to be another unfulfilled promise. Shortly after starting, they informed us that they would no longer provide drinking water, a service that only cost the company £90 for three months. Instead, we were told to purchase our own water or use tap water. To make matters even more complicated, there's no dedicated HR department, and to my disbelief, someone from management claimed to be the HR which is incredibly problematic, particularly when they are the problem themselves. Notably, the exceptionally high staff turnover rate among lab managers doesn't come as a surprise to me now that I've experienced working here. I only wish that more of them had shared their experiences through reviews before departing. There is little to do, with not many samples being received per day. Consequently, there isn’t much work for the technicians to engage with. However, it’s perplexing that management still expects them to stay busy and create tasks out of thin air. Failing to do so results in facing an excessive amount of criticism
